Dear Santa, All I Want For Christmas is a Big Ass Striker

Dear Santa,

I can’t thank you enough for giving us the early gift of a win over Stoke. Yeah, I know it was only Stoke but our guys haven’t been doing to well and what with all the injuries we’ve had, wins didn’t seem to be there. So thanks. Also thanks for letting Andrei find his scoring touch. He was the best present you gave us last year and unfortunately whether its the English weather or his Russian wife beating him up for his antiquated thinking he just hasn’t delivered all that much.

All of us Gooners would also like to thank you for letting us qualify for the Champion’s League early. We don’t need any more injuries to our first team players so they definitely need the rest.

But the REAL reason I am writing is what I want this year. As you may or may not know, we’re having an injury crisis of sorts down here in London. The thing is we’ve got some tremendous talent on our side but with all the injuries we’re lacking in height and strikers. We really need someone who can come in and be a presence up front because right now the midget brigade isn’t going to cut it until April.

So I was wondering if you could possibly send us one (I’m not greedy) of the following strikers:

Edin Dzeko

Edin is current at Vfl Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.

He’s 23 years old

He stands at 6 ft 3 in

Recently he was one of the 30 players nominated for the Ballon d’Or

In 74 appearance for Vfl Wolfsburg he has scored 40 goals He already has 6 for his 2009/2010 Bundesliga campaign. He ended his 2008/2009 campaign  with 26 goals and 10 assists in 32 league matches. And in the UEFA cup he had 4 goals in 8 matches. Finally, in 23 appearances for his national side, Bosnia Herzegovina he has 14 goals in 23 appearances. Unfortunately he is cup tied.

Santa he is big, quick and young AND he can score. All things our manager Arsene Wenger (you may have heard of him) likes. We’d REALLY like him ALOT. 

Gianpaolo Pazzini:

Gizzi is only 25 years old and currently playing for Serie A side Sampdoria after spending 3 seasons at Fiorentina.

He is only 5 ft 11 in tall but hey he is bigger than anything else we got.

He holds the record for the first goal and first hat-trick scored at the new Wembley Stadium having scored in a friendly against the England U-21 squad. He made his first appearance with the Italian senior squad this year and has 1 goal in 5 appearances.

In his first two seasons at Sampdoria he has19 goals in 32 appearances. In fact 8 of those have only come in the 15 matches played so far in the 2009/2010 campaign. In 2008/2009 he scored 11 goals in 18 matches played for Sampdoria. He has been especially prolific in the Coppa Italia with 2 goals in 1 appearance this season and has 4 goals  in 4 appearances last season. And he is NOT Cup Tied.

He is avirtual unknown to a lot of people outside of the EPL except for Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea( but Santa they already have too many toys) and as such I don’t think we’d have to pay too much for him.

Gizzi scores almost every time he has the ball. Granted its not against the EPL tough guys but it is in the Serie A which is no light weight league either. 

Oscar Cardozo

Oscar plays for the Portguese Liga side Sport Lisboa e Benfica where he has been since 2007. Before playing for Benfica he played in Paraguay for Newell’s Old Boys.

He is 26 years old (ancient by our club standards)

He stands at 6 ft 4.5 in tall (a giant amongst our team)

Cardozo might be a little bit more expensive since he was Benfica’s second biggest signing at 11 million Euros.  In all his time, 65 apperances he has scored 44 goals. So far in 11 games for the Portugese side he has 14 goals.  He has two hat-tricks already in his league and a Brace  against Everton in the Europa Cup. He scored the brace within two minutes.  His current league scoring ratiohas him leading the league in scoring by a whopping 6 goal difference from the next scorer.

Carlton Cole:

We know Carlton really well. He bullies around our smaller players from time to time on the field. And we like him. Unfortunately he is injured right now. But that doesn’t diminish the impact he could have if we got him.

He currently plays for West Ham but came from Chelsea which would be a bonus in twisting the screw.

He is 26 and stands 6 ft 3in tall.

Since joining West Ham in 2006 he has scored 23 goals in 88 appearances. Yeah not as good as the others but imagine if he were playing on a team that could feed him the ball regularly.

He has been so strong this year that Fabio Capello finally handed him his senior international debut this season.

Dieumerci Mbokani

We really only just met this guy and he had a croker of a shot go off the cross bar against us. But from what I hear Arsene has been watching him so if he has been watching him maybe you could just put him under the tree.

Currently plays for Standard Liege

He is 24 years old and stands at 6 ft 1 in.

And in 61 appearances for Standard he has 32 goals. Not too bad. Oh and he’s African which is something Arsene also likes.

Marouane Chamakh

This is a gift we have wanted for a long time and we almost got it but no deal could be made.

Marouane plays for Ligue 1 side Bordeaux

He is 25 years old and stands at 6 ft 2 in.

He is versatile player and can play as a Striker, attacking midfielder and Winger. Given our history of injuries having someone that flexible can come in hand. Since joining Bourdeaux in 2002 he has scored 50 goals in 204 appearances. His best year was 13 goals in in 34 appearances in 2008/2009. So far for this season the Moroccan born star has 4 goals in 10 appearances.

He is a star on the rise but he is cup tied and frankly we could get him for free in the summer. So if we don’t get him we won’t be that sad – so long as we get one of the others.

Mario Balotelli:

Santa we know that this guy isn’t finished and could require some work but Arsene does have a way of getting the best out of players and getting them to play within their talents.

Super Mario has he has been called is only 19 years old and stands at 6 ft 2.5 in.

The unfortunate thing is that he plays for Inter Milan managed by the perpetual naughty guy, Jose Mourhino. Considering the relationship between him and Arsene it might not happen but if you make it happen, we won’t be unhappy.

Balotelli has unfulfilled potential and unfortunately it may be of his own doing since he has had discipline problems of late. He has not trained as hard as some of his teammates and has drawn the ire of the Special One. If you do give him to us we understand that Arsene will have his hands full with either a budding brat or a budding star. Either way he has a lot of talent and could wind up under someone’s tree. I’d prefer it to be ours rather than Chelsea’s.

Krkic Bojan

A lot of Gooners like this kid because of is potential Santa I am not one of them. For one reason only – do we really need another player under 5 ft 8 in.

Sure he plays at Barcalona in a system similar to ours and is coached supposedly by the heir apparent.

He is only 19 and only stands a whopping 5 ft 7 in tall. Not what we need to kill off the likes of Didier Drogba.

Don’t get me wrong Santa. I would be grateful if we got him. He is very talented. But their isn’t much history to gauge so far how he would fare. He has 13 goals in 59 appearances for Barca. Other than that we don’t have much to go on with him. But if he were the gift we got, we are sure, Arsene and crew would make the most of his talents.

But like I said I still think he would be too small.

Santa we really really really need a new striker. Someone with size, skill and speed. Anyone one of these would be so AWESOME in a nice red bow come January (we know you couldn’t get it to us in time for Christmas).  Whatever you give us I’m sure we’ll be happy – so long as he is a striker.

Oh yeah Santa while you are at it, if you happen to have a number 1 keeper in your bag we could use a new one. The one you gave us a few years ago doesn’t work any more. Not sure if he is broke but he just doesn’t work. Oh and a left back would be nice too.

Enjoy the milk and cookies and tell Rudolph we said hi!!

Love,

Gooners!