As a Wenger-esque orchestral feel returned to Arsenal’s play against Aston Villa this week, one player stood apart from the glow of free expression.
By the time that Arsenal had relocated joy in a season tinged with trepidation, Viktor Gyökeres, their £64m striker, had missed with two standard-fare headers – leaving him stuck on five league goals as 2026 dawned. In 2024-25, Gyökeres scored an unfeasible 63 in 58 matches in all competitions for club and country (Sporting Lisbon and Sweden).
Yesterday’s safe bet is today’s regrettable gamble. Or in Manchester United’s case, gambles, plural. Rasmus Højlund cost United £64m and repaid them with 14 goals in 62 league matches before moving to Napoli and reviving his career (players perk up with remarkable regularity after leaving Old Trafford).
With Højlund gone, United paid £73.7m for Benjamin Šeško. Dividend so far: two in 15 Premier League fixtures.
To deny Šeško, Gyökeres, João Pedro (six for Chelsea) or Florian Wirtz (one for Liverpool) the right to settle is plain unkind. Happy hunting to them all. Already though we can say that this year’s bonfire of transfer fees for attackers has shaped the title race. All Erling Haaland has had to do is stay in the role and enjoy the misfortunes of others.
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Alexander Isak, the most expensive of the lot at £130m, was a shadow of his Newcastle self before finding a bit of form but then suffering a broken leg while scoring against Spurs. The arrival of Isak, Wirtz (a No 10, not No 9) and Hugo Ekitiké – a success, with eight goals – caused transition angst at Liverpool and unsettled Mo Salah.
To say that Arsenal crushed Villa despite, rather than because of, Gyökeres is pushing it. His physical presence can be beneficial. But watching him toil on Tuesday night, a list ran through the head of outlandish sums spent on “proven” goalscorers. At the halfway point, you can smell the money burning.
First the Premier League inflated Europe’s transfer market, then Europe took revenge by over-charging gullible English clubs. The kind of temptation that took Antony to United for £82m or Nicolas Pépé to Arsenal for £73m is still raging.
At Europe’s biggest clubs, you don’t hear the same laments. At Bayern Munich last season, Harry Kane scored 41 goals in 51 games. Ousmane Dembélé amassed 35 in 53 for Paris Saint-Germain in that time. The wunderkind Lamine Yamal, 18, is scoring regularly for Barcelona. Kylian Mbappé piled up 44 in 59 games for Real Madrid last term.
In England, with Salah becalmed, only Haaland can match those luminaries in the category that defines the sport. It’s axiomatic that the greatest sides earned that label by employing someone who is consistent in making the difference between victory and defeat.
So it wasn’t unreasonable for Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and even Liverpool to allocate vast pots this year for the procurement of difference-makers. The tactical shift away from relentless passing and possession, meanwhile, brought larger centre-forwards back into vogue. Gyökeres is 6ft 2in, Šeško 6ft 5in and Nick Woltemade 6ft 6in.
But it hasn’t worked. Yet. Before Saturday’s fixtures, the closest striker to Haaland in the Premier League table was Igor Thiago, who had 11 for Brentford. Next was Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo, who is on a fast track to Manchester City, perhaps for £75m.
The safe bet is pay, sit back, applaud. But mistakes are made where money is too abundant
In his first season at Brentford, Thiago played eight times without scoring. Last season Semenyo scored 11 in the league for Bournemouth – and eight in the campaign before that. At Bristol City, before Bournemouth, he went on loan to Bath City, Newport County and Sunderland. He was a classic hidden gem, bought for £10m and given time to develop by an innovative club.
At £30m, Thiago was more expensive, after scoring 18 league goals for Club Brugge in the 2023-24 campaign. The point is that he and Semenyo were recruitment “finds”. So was Jean-Philippe Mateta at Crystal Palace. Danny Welbeck was “rescued” by Brighton on the basis of his pedigree, dressing-room influence and potential to improve with age. Gyökeres, Šeško, Isak and Wirtz emerged from a different algorithm: the one that says – safe bet, pay the money, sit back and applaud. That’s where the mistakes are being made, where money is too abundant.
Liverpool have made stunning signings and they have dropped some clangers. Before Isak and Wirtz came Darwin Núñez (£64m), whose Liverpool goal ratio was close to one in four. Newcastle’s Woltemade (£65m) is in the “respectable” class with seven in 16 league games. It can’t have been easy replacing Isak in front of a crowd that lives on its emotions.
With its extravagance, England’s top division has manufactured its own inflationary market, at a time when Premier League football has become more direct, and therefore altered the demands placed on imported strikers. A No 9 with high numbers in a less competitive league is automatically now £60m-£70m.
They are meant to be recruitment triumphs who stop pundits saying: “They need a striker.” They are supposed to keep fans off the owner’s back. Instead their mighty price-tags are making some seem hyped, poor value, and exposed to the mad economics that make them cost as much as a super-yacht.
Photograph by Jacques Feeney/Offside/Getty Images