West Brom move can kick-start Vela’s Arsenal career

Yesterday was an intriguing day in the transfer market, mostly involving the movement, or potential movement of strikers in the Premier League.

The big headlines are being made at Anfield, where Ajax’s Luis Suarez has come in, and star striker Fernando Torres could be on the way out to Chelsea.

As far as Arsenal are concerned, Carlos Vela has gone on loan to West Brom for the remainder of the season. It’s funny how football works; Vela was strongly linked with a temporary switch to Bolton for the last month and even earlier, yet nothing materialised, and out of the blue he joined the Baggies instead.

Vela has shown glimpses of real talent at Arsenal, but obviously glimpses are not enough at this level, and with the level of competition at the club, he has been unable to claim a regular place. I do feel, however, that with a run of games, he could find his feet and show himself to be a top striker. I hope his loan goes well, and I hope he can learn something from it. He looks like a player who could really do something in the game, and it would surprise me if he didn’t, as the talent is clearly there. For now, something seems to be in the way of him fulfilling his potential, but I think he can overcome that at The Hawthorns.

While the Mexican’s move is good news for gooners, Torres moving to Chelsea would not be. The Spaniard is an immensely talented forward who has done well to make do with the poor service he often has to work with at Liverpool. Obviously Chelsea are not in brilliant form just now, but they would give Torres better passes, and he can make more of them than the recently off-form Drogba has been doing.

It could be argued that Chelsea are more in need of a defender than a striker, and it might well be good news that their move for Benfica centre-back David Luiz appears to have fallen through. With their lack of options at the back, even the addition of Torres might not be enough to help them catch up with Arsenal.

And how about Liverpool? They’ve just risen to seventh and looked to be on the way up under Kenny Dalglish, so the loss of their best player is the last thing they need.

Then again, Suarez scored 49 goals in 48 games for Ajax last season, and an overall record of 110 goals in 154 games for the Amsterdam club. It’s obviously a far weaker league than in England, but he clearly blew it away, and took that form to the World Cup for Uruguay. From what I’ve seen of him, I rate him pretty highly and it was only a matter of time before he moved to a better league. He’s not the tallest or most physical, so it could be that the Premier League is not quite right for him, but then, Edin Dzeko hasn’t started that well, has he?

I wish there were more Arsenal-related transfer news to talk about. I guess we do like to do things late, and Wenger has not ruled out the possibility of a loan signing, so watch this space. 

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Mark Brus

I'm 23-years-old and currently living in Bristol, studying to be a journalist. I've been hooked on Arsenal since I was about 10, and as much as I sometimes wish I could stop, I can't give them up. Favourite player of all time would have to be Patrick Vieira for the sheer passion with which he played the game.

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