The mini-Haaland who can transform Arsenal’s summer transfer plans

Robin Bairner

• 19 Mar 2024 08:52 GMT
• 3 min read

Arsenal’s desire to sign a striker during the summer transfer window is well established, and the identity of the centre-forward the Gunners with to sign is becoming clearer.

FootballTransfers has revealed that Sporting CP striker Viktor Gyokeres is increasingly manager Mikel Arteta’s first choice option, even with the Sweden international having been slapped with the price tag of €100 million by his club.

Arsenal scouts watched the forward score a hat-trick against Boavista on Sunday as he continued his excellent recent form.

READ MORE: Arsenal overtake Man Utd to make €50m star's dream come true

Arteta’s prospects of landing his top target, meanwhile, are being helped by the performances of Gunners striker Mika Biereth, whose strong displays on loan with Sturm Graz in Austria are catching the eye.

Biereth, 21, only moved to Graz in the January transfer window after a successful start to the season with Motherwell in Scotland. He netted six times and created five more goals for the Well before Arteta recalled him and had a good look at him.

A loan with Sturm Graz was ultimately brokered and while with the Austrian club, he has scored seven goals in his last eight games. The only blank he has drawn came against Lille in the Conference League.

READ MORE: Latest Arsenal transfer rumours

Arsenal’s Haaland

Biereth’s form in the Austrian Bundesliga is not so different from the numbers that were being put up by Erling Haaland during his brief stint with Red Bull Salzburg.

The Manchester City striker scored 29 times in 27 games for the club.

Although Biereth has not been quite as prolific, bear in mind that Sturm Graz are not the league’s dominant team in the way that Haaland’s Salzburg were.

The striker continued his bright form at the weekend in a one-sided 4-0 win over Austria Klagenfurt, in which he bagged the opening two goals.

Both were clever predatory finishes. For the first, he found himself in the right place to slot home a rebound while the second was a back-post header after finding room in the box.

The expectation is that Arsenal will sell Biereth in the summer to fund other deals, such as the Gyokeres transfer. The more goals he scores now, the bigger the fee the Gunners can demand for him will be, and the higher that price, the more clout Arteta has to land the targets he really wants.