Even if the notion that Gonzalo Higuain isn’t a big-game striker, he’s still better and more prolific than anything Arsenal have at the moment. Real Madrid have pretty much made it clear that they’re willing to listen to offers for the player, and the gunners, planning on making an expensive overhaul this summer, are the first in line.

Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Lukas Podolski. Only one of them is an actual striker, and he isn’t very good. Walcott and Podolski are both better scorers, but aren’t a real target man in the full sense of the word. Higuain might not be as well, but he’s one of those players who doesn’t do too many things too well, except for scoring goals.

How well? In 188 La Liga matches for Real Madrid, he has scored 105 goals. While it took him time during his first couple of seasons, arriving as a teenager from River Plate (although he was born in France), his tally from 2008 and onward greatly improved, getting more and more playing time in his favored position. Over the last five seasons, Higuain has scored 95 goals in 144 matches, inlcuding three seasons of more than 22 goals on one of the most demanding clubs in the world.

For the national team, Higuain has scored 19 times in his 32 caps, including a hat-trick in the 2010 World Cup, which ended in the quarterfinals for the side. He’s battled with Karim Benzema for a place next to Cristiano Ronaldo in recent years, usually winning the battle unless Mourinho went with the three-strikers formation.

The price? While Arsenal value Higuain at £18 million, Real Madrid know they can probably get a little bit more out of them. There’s also interest from other clubs, which should help Arsenal add a few figures to the amount they wire, something around £22-23 million, which sounds about right for a prolific striker who is only 25 and has a few more years of his best football to give.