Vlahovic, Isak, Dembele and all the forwards Arsenal failed to sign in January

FT Desk

• Updated: 23 May 2023 08:55 CDT
• 4 min read

Arsenal fans can, in one form or another, understand why the club was forced to let certain players move on in the January transfer window.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles demanded more game time, Pablo Mari simply wasn’t good enough and Calum Chambers and Sead Kolasinac were running their contracts down. And the less said about Pierre-Emerick Aubameyan’s commitment to Mikel Arteta’s team, the better.

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However, what will bother fans of the Premier League side is the inability to bring in new players to replace the ones that had moved on.

Not only did Arsenal need fresh faces and extra talent to make a late push for the top four, but they also desperately needed more firepower up front. And it seems as though an impressively long list of strikers did their best to avoid the club’s attempts to sign them at every turn.

The strikers that rejected Arsenal

Perhaps the most notable and high-profile rejection that Arsenal received this month was from Dusan Vlahovic, who not only opted for a move to Juventus over the London club from Fiorentina, but did so after reportedly making it clear that he had no intention of joining the English side.

Another notable European talisman that also continued to elude the club over the course of January was Alexander Isak, who was even reportedly spotted shopping and driving around London at the height of Arsenal’s reported interest in the striker. He also never ended up making a move to the club.

Another impressive striker that would have made for an exceptional signing was Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who was also heavily linked with a move to the club. However, Everton’s own turmoil on the pitch seemed to put a stop to that when new manager Frank Lampard reportedly blocked any prospect of the Merseyside club selling their star striker before he could get to work.

Elsewhere, Arsenal have also been linked with a number of forwards that have struggled for game time and are certainly not of the same profile as Vlahovic or Isak. Alvaro Morata, Jonathan David, Luka Jovic and Dejan Kulusevski are such transfer targets, yet even they seemed to prove too difficult for Arsenal to tie down.

Perhaps the most striking rejection came on the final day of the window, when rumours began to circulate that the club were then looking at Espanyol forward Raul de Tomas as a potential replacement for Aubameyang.

That was, of course, until the Spanish side found out and quickly rejected any notion of a deal. “Arsenal called for Raul de Tomas but we didn’t even want to talk,” said Espanyol director Jose Maria Duran on Monday. “We won’t let him go now, no way. His release clause is €75m.”

Then, just as if things couldn't get more embarassing for the club, sports journalist Fabrizio Romano reported that Arsenal had made a late bid to bring Ousmane Dembele to the club as part of the loan deal for Aubameyang. However, the French winger had since rejected any notion of a move to the London club.

And with that came a loud and crashing end to Arsenal’s January transfer window and any hope of signing a striker.