Wenger interested in French hotshot.

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Guillaume Hoarau poses at the Camp des Loges training Center

Imagine if, using some kind of hi-tech gene-splicing machine, you could create a hybrid of two of Europe’s top strikers – and vastly different ones at that. We have a theory that this may be what they’re upto over in France…

For you see, the subject of today’s scouting report, compiled with the help of our friends at Championship Manager, has in the past been compared to both Karim Benzema and Peter Crouch – two forwards with very differing playing styles, we’re sure you’ll agree.

PSG striker Guillaume Hoarau has the size, strength, pace and finishing ability to be a real threat in the Premier League, which is exactly why sides such as Chelsea, Arsenal and Blackburn have already been sniffing around the gangly 25 year old.

His real breakthrough came in 2007/08, a season in which Hoarau scored 28 goals and was dubbed ‘the Karim Benzema of Ligue 2’. In the middle of this successful campaign, he made a €500,000 move to Paris Saint-Germain, but stayed on loan at Le Havre for the remainder of the season. It was around this time that he first started arousing interest from Premier League sides.

Hoarau arrived in Paris with big expectations – he was seen as the replacement for the prolific Portuguese striker Pauleta, and was lauded by the club’s president as the team’s ‘signing of the century’. He got off to a good start, scoring in a 1-0 victory over Bordeaux in only his second match for the club, before going on to finish the season with 20 goals from 45 appearances in all competitions. He received his first call-up to the senior French side during this period, although he is, to date, yet to win his first cap. (Four Four Two)

Lets face it Arsene Wenger is linked with a move for a French player every day of every week but this particular forward could be a very good catch. Last season Hoarau came of age and finished as joint second top scorer in Ligue 1 and instantly came to the attention of a plethora of clubs across Europe.

The lanky striker has paid his dues in the French league, spending five years at minnows Le Havre before finally getting his big break with a move to PSG where he hasn’t looked back since. Now painfully close to a full senior call up and perhaps even an outside shot of a place in the forthcoming World Cup squad, if France make it, so he may feel a move to the Premier League could help push him up the pecking order.

He is the type of striker who could work well at Arsenal, like a kind of less disrespectful version of Adebayor in the sense that he is a rangy player who can battle for the ball and has strength but is also lethal in front of goal.


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