Arsene Wenger will breathe a sigh of relief as he is reportedly close to sealing a deal for former Schalke striker Ciprian Marica, as confirmed by the player’s agent Giovani Becali in the media.

The French boss has been struggling to cope with the intensity of the summer transfer window, which has seen him lose many top targets to clubs who have splashed the cash on multi-million pound salary deals. The last decade has seen a transition in the Gunners’ transfer policy, with the club refusing to pay over the top to sign big stars; instead, they took to developing talent at the club itself with the help of the youth academy. This helped produce players like Kieran Gibbs who have now established their place in the starting eleven. While clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea have been buying players who are their prime at high prices, Arsenal have been strengthening their scouting team and finding talents who may have potential to reach the top.

However, this summer saw another key transition in transfer policy, when chief executive Ivan Gazidiz announced that the club would now be willing to spend big on players Wenger thought were good enough. This brought a whole set of players to be linked with the club, and having a striker was top of the priority list to ease the pressure off Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski. Hence, the club were linked to players like former Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain, who came close to signing for the Gunners, but for Napoli to offer a better deal to the player. The same was the case with Stevan Jovetic, who was linked with Arsenal for majority of the window, but was signed in the end by City, who offered a better deal.

In that case, Marica, a free agent, could be a great bargain for Wenger, who is looking to add competition to his strike force. The Romanian striker has played for clubs like Dinamo Bucaresti, Shakhtar Donetsk, Stuttgart and Schalke. However, the 27-year old has been unable to settle into one club for the long term.

According to Metro, Becali said, “He is close to Arsenal, we’ll see this week. Marica is a very good striker, a Romanian national player who has great experience.”