Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny feels the Gunners need to sign a minimum of four new players to challenge for the Premier League title next season.
The North London club started the 2013/14 season strongly, but their title challenge fell through in the latter half of the campaign due to injuries, while the lack of top quality replacements also contributed to the Gunners downfall.
The Frenchman also urged manager Arsene Wenger to bring in a top striker in the summer to partner and compete with current first-choice front man Olivier Giroud.
According to Sky Sports, he said:
We’ll need a goalkeeper, a right back, a midfielder and a striker.
It’s important to have a minimum of these four players so that we’ll be better able to challenge over the course of a whole season against teams like Manchester City, Chelsea or (Manchester) United. Winning the FA Cup can change things and lead to other players coming.
We need to recruit a very, very good striker, because it’s important for us, for competition for places, because Olivier needs that to become even better.
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Having a striker who scores more than 30 goals a season can help us win the Premier League. Compared to the squads like Manchester City, even United, Chelsea, you can see there’s a certain difference.
It was a relief for everyone. We felt a weight coming off us. We made the most of it when we celebrated our trophy, it was an extraordinary moment. Thanks to this trophy, we’ll be able to play more freely in the years to come without this pressure hanging over us, thinking ‘we must win a trophy.
The Gunners faded alarmingly fast as last season drew to a close, mainly due to their lack of squad depth. This summer the club have to address quite a few needs in the starting line-up especially if they are going to challenge for on all fronts.
Bacary Sagna will have to be replaced, as will Lukasz Fabianski, and the club could also do with an upgrade in the defensive midfield position considering the aging factor of Arteta and Flamini. The London club also need a top striker, as they have been the lowest-scoring side among the top-four teams scoring just 68 goals, compared to the likes of City and Liverpool who netted more than 100 times.
Arsenal have consistently been linked with Bayern Munich forward Mario Mandzukic, as well as Real Madrid star Karim Benzema and AC Milan’s Mario Balotelli. If we can sign one of the aforementioned names then it would prove a huge boost for our chances of becoming a serious force domestically and in Europe next season.
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