Joe Cole claims £79m Liverpool star would have 'won Arsenal the Premier League'

Former Chelsea and Liverpool winger Joe Cole (Picture: Getty)

Joe Cole believes Arsenal would have the Premier League already wrapped up had they signed Hugo Ekitike instead of Viktor Gyokeres last summer.

Despite leading from the front for most of the campaign, the title is now out of Arsenal’s hands after a costly 2-1 defeat to Manchester City last weekend.

Before kick-off, eyebrows were raised when Mikel Arteta selected Kai Havertz to lead the line for the Gunners, with Gyokeres named on the bench.

The Swedish striker has scored 12 league goals in his maiden season in north London, but has failed to justify his £64million price tag in the eyes of many within the Arsenal fanbase.

And Cole is adamant that Arsenal’s current situation would be looking far better had they instead pursued a move for Ekitike, who joined Liverpool from Eintracht Frankfurt last summer.

‘Gyokeres was the big signing. If Arsenal don’t win anything, they have got that signing wrong,’ Cole said on The Dressing Room Podcast .

‘You’re coming to the biggest game of the season and you’ve gone with two No10s, Havertz and Odegaard, and not with a number nine.

Viktor Gyokeres was dropped last weekend (Picture: Getty)

‘Havertz was brilliant, but let’s just imagine Ekitike was signed instead of Gyokeres, I think Arsenal would have won the league by now, I do.

‘Ekitike is a proper player.’

Speaking further about Gyokeres’ first season in the Premier League, Cole added: ‘I think Gyokeres is good, and you need to give him another year.

Cole believes that Hugo Ekitike would have fired Arsenal to the league title (Picture: Getty)

‘But ultimately, you know from our time at top clubs, and especially in the modern game, you rotate, play a different centre forward, different full-backs, but when it is the big games, you are starting with your best XI, and he [Arteta] just doesn’t think Gyokeres is.’

Meanwhile, former Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney suggested that Arteta’s decision to drop Gyokeres may play on the striker’s mind during the final weeks of the season.

‘I think these decisions if he comes on and scores the winner or scores the equalising goal obviously it’s the right decision,’ Rooney told BBC Sport.

‘I thought with him not starting, Arsenal would’ve tried to sit in there.

‘It was a strange one, him not starting because you bring a No.9 in which they’ve been looking for all season, and I actually think he’s done OK, to not start him in such a big game, I think that might affect him.’

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