Arsenal can’t sleep on Bournemouth throwback Kroupi and allow him to join Chelsea unchallenged | OneFootball

Engage your average football fan over the age of 25 in conversation down the pub and at some point pretty early on in the inevitable ‘what’s wrong with the modern game?’ discussion, shortly after VAR, the obsession with playing out from the back – “all we want is for them to mix it up a bit, y’know?” – and some reference to them being overpaid good-for-nothings, they will probably ask ‘what’s happened to all the elite strikers?’

Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski will be named as the exceptions, Harry Kane mentioned but dismissed as he’s ‘more like a playmaker these days, isn’t he?’, before we have a good laugh at the expense of Viktor Gyokeres and Arsenal and move on to how refreshing it is to see long throws back in the beautiful game.

No doubt a namecheck of Junior Kroupi would be met with either confusion or short shrift. But after the 19-year-old scored his eighth Premier League goal against Wolves, scored at a rate of one every 97 minutes in his debut season in the English top flight, those of us dreaming wistfully of the days when false 9s and inverted 10s were no more than glints in the eyes of the football nerds and the Proper Goalscorers reigned supreme have been granted a welcome dose of nostalgia by Bournemouth’s throwback.

“My first thought when I watch him is Jermaine Defoe,” Jamie Redknapp said on Sky Sports earlier this month. “Unbelievable striker of the ball, great finisher. He gets that dip on it – it’s ferocious.”

And it’s not at all hard to imagine Defoe rifling a bouncing ball in from the edge of the box as Kroupi did to score the opener at Molineux on Saturday. It was a ‘f*** it’ finish earned through what has clearly been an inordinate amount of time on the training ground spent striking the ball over what most forwards these days believe to be more crucial pieces of their armoury: dribbling, passing, running, pressing.

Back in France, he was often played on the left wing, naturally drifting inside, not unlike a certain Real Madrid superstar, according to former teammate and ex-Chelsea midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko, who played with him at Lorient.

Speaking after Lorient’s 3-3 draw with Lyon back in 2023, in which Kroupi scored a brace, Bakayoko said: “He’s a phenomenon. He reminds me a little of Kylian Mbappé in terms of the maturity of his game. He already has good stats for a youngster his age.”

The maturity of Mbappe and the finishing skills of Defoe makes him a hugely exciting prospect for Bournemouth, and of course for whichever Premier League giant managed to poach him from the Cherries, presumably at the end of this season as there’s simply no way big-club directors will stand idly by as a teenager scores at such a rate and in such style.

Chelsea would be likely suitors in their unflinching bid to hoover up young talent whether they need them or not. Joao Pedro could score 20 goals in what remains of the season and it wouldn’t stop them going for Kroupi.

Chances are the Blues will be actively looking for a striker in the summer transfer window as they have been for transfer windows for close to a decade following Diego Costa’s departure from the club, a period in which Arenal have also been linked with innumerable strikers having faced similar issues up top.

Gyokeres may have scored in victory over Leeds on Saturday, but serious doubts remain over his ability to a) lead the line effectively for Arsenal, and b) convert the chances when they come his way. Kroupi may not have the presence that the Gunners at least hoped Gyokeres would have, but he’s got the finishing ability to be dubbed a ‘natural’, even if those skills were in fact honed for hours on end on the training pitch.

He’s a real talent and one Arsenal must not allow to join Chelsea unchallenged when the bids start flying in the summer.