One of the more intriguing moves by the close of the summer transfer window was the deal which saw Nicklas Bendtner move to current Serie A champions Juventus. However, with Arsene Wenger since intimating that the Dane may have a future at the club, could he yet return to the Emirates next season?
The 24-year-old has always been a player that attracts scorn, mainly due to an over-inflated sense of self worth; he is irrationally arrogant, particularly given his ability, but that shouldn’t detract from what a decent player he actually is. He may not be the world-class player he thinks in his own head he is, but we shouldn’t let that colour our judgement when trying to assess his abilities and he’s proven at international level and at major tournaments now, having scored at both World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012.
Wenger told Sky Sports last week: “Bendtner is a top player, he is an international striker for Denmark and he also scored two goals against Portugal (at Euro 2012). I think that by playing for Juventus, he will improve and then he will come back to Arsenal. Juventus will enhance him for us.”
It may have just been a throwaway line that ‘he will come back to Arsenal’, but Wenger rarely ever gives anything away to the press unless he absolutely has to and there is often an ulterior motive at play. It should be seen as a cautious approach that he’s taking with concerns to his own summer signings of Olivier Giroud and Lukas Podolski, should they not fire on all cylinders this season, which seems a sensible position to take.
There are huge amounts of pressure on them both to do well this season and slot into the first-team picture quickly, and while they are certainly massively different players to Robin van Persie, they will have to replace his outgoing 30 league goals in their first seasons in England, which is no mean feat.
Respected journalist Jonathan Wilson argued last week that Podolski will struggle against the league’s lesser light but excel against better opposition, as he lacks the guile and pace to cut open a defence that plays very much in front of him. However, against a better standard of team, he will be given more space to act on the counter, which he proved by finishing with aplomb against Liverpool last weekend and he poses an interesting threat for the side this year.
Giroud on the other hand, has gotten off to a reasonably slow start and his misses against both Sunderland and Liverpool, he should have buried and probably would have last term while at Montpellier. Against Stoke, he simply failed to see Aaron Ramsey bursting through the middle of the park late on in the stalemate away from home, choosing an overly ambitious 40-yard strike instead, which shows his eagerness to impress and get off the mark, even if the execution was wayward and thinking somewhat flawed.
I don’t doubt that the Frenchman, in the long-run at least, will prove to be a very good signing for the club, but he will need time to adjust and settle, and this represents by far the biggest challenge of his career. For Podolski, despite a middling club career, he has at least performed superbly and most importantly, consistently, on the international stage with Germany to the tune of 44 goals, but there’s no getting away from the fact that this is a frontline in a certain state of flux and transition and there will be more bumpy days ahead yet.
With Park Chu-Young having departed for Celta Vigo on loan on deadline day, even with Arsene Wenger’s preferred 4-3-3 formation in mind, they could perhaps still do with another forward comfortable in that central role, with Marouane Chamakh all but discarded to the scrapheap now, having struggled to cope with the physical demands of the top flight, something which Bendtner appears to be tailor-made to.
They have plenty of options down the flanks, with Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gervinho, Andrey Arshavin, Santi Cazorla and Podolski all comfortable on either flank, but they’ve still only scored two goals in their opening three league games and a decent 30-minutes spell against Liverpool aside, they’ve lacked penetration at times.
Of course, Bendtner isn’t the sole answer to all of this, merely another option or as manager’s love to call them these days ‘solution’. He’s a better player than most give him credit for and he was excellent at Euro 2012 for Denmark. He’s obviously not the marquee signing that Juventus would have wanted this summer, but they were hamstrung by their obvious financial limitations in the pursuit of Van Persie, but if he does do well in Serie A, there should be no reason why he couldn’t come back an be a success at Arsenal.
The main worry with Bendtner is that he lacks consistency and he can often be found marking himself out of games at times, a trait that Walcott also appears to have honed ti a fine art over the years. He sought an exit from the club due to a lack of first-team opportunities and perhaps Wenger is merely trying to drive up his future potential price and strengthen the club’s bargaining position by highlighting that he has a future at Arsenal, but there’s no denying that there’s a very good player in there somewhere, despite the quesionable character.
The real problem comes in when you try to convince Bendtner of that and he seems as if he’s been promised much in the past, but given very little, even if his output during that period hasn’t really warranted much more than a squad player status. This campaign represents a pivotal fork in the proverbial road for him and a loan deal allows Wenger the ideal opportunity to gather more information about whether he is worthy of keeping around and making the step up or not; if he succeeds in Turin, there could be life in the old Dane yet.
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