After recently being linked with a January move for Juventus’ Alessandro Matri, we thought it only right that we give you the low-down on the striker who many Arsenal fans may not know, or even heard about.
So here are 10 things you should know about Matri.
1. Born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, Italy, Matri is a Fanfulla and AC Milan youth product.
2. After spending six years in the Milan youth academy, in 2002, the Italian was promoted to the first-team. However, during his five year stay, the 28-year-old only managed to make a single appearance for the San Siro club.
3. During his five year stay at Milan, Matri sealed several loan moves. The clubs included Prato, Lumezzane and Rimini – making a combined total of 92 appearances and scoring 22 goals – before eventually being sold to Cagiliari in a co-ownership deal worth £1.6 million.
4. In June 2008, Cagiliari decided to buy the other half of the player’s registration rights for another £1.6 million.
5. Now officially a Cagiliari player, after being bought from Milan, the next season saw Matri become the club’s third-choice striker, behind Jeda and Acquafresca.
6. During his four years at Cagiliari, Matri made 125 appearances in all competitions, netting 36 goals and creating 11.
7. On the 31st of January 2011, the striker joined Juve on loan until the end of the season for £2 million, and had the choice of signing Matri on permanent deal after the conclusion of the campaign for £12.5 million in three instalments. Subsequently, on June 22nd, Matri officially signed for Juve until 2015 after an impressive return – nine goals in 16 outings.
8. In April this year, Juve announced they added two more years to his existing contract.
9. Since signing for Juve, the Italy international has netted 29 goals in 62 appearances. However, he has struggled to get games this season, managing only 12 outings (six starts), hence his recent link to Arsenal.
10. According to current reports, The Gunners are weighing up a £7 million winter move for Matri.
Here is a video of the Italian forward in action:
Like what you read? Then follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/Gunnersphere
Visit and Join our Facebook page, click HERE to do so.
Gunnersphere is currently looking for new writers to join the squad. Contact via twitter or at Gunnersphere@snack-media.com for further details.
What qualities does he have is what we want to know.
Another in dip form player to the already in dip form squad? what is the logic here…jezzz.
He’s inconsistent which is why he used to be a staple in the Juve team and is now 4th choice striker. This is what Wenger is doing to Arsenal, buying low quality players or other teams’ cast offs. Please see Silvestre, Squillaci for more details
On the face of it, Squillaci was a perfectly reasonable signing seeing as we just needed an experienced backup defender – he ticked all the boxes (experienced title-winning, international centre back) but sometimes these things just don’t work out.
In any case, Silvestre and Squillaci are hardly the reason for our poor recent form, and are just examples of scapegoats for team failures over the past few seasons. No, there is a decent amount of quality. Had we kept RVP this should be a squad to seriously challenge for the title, but as it stands, it’s easily top 4 in terms of quality alone, but something else is awry. IMO it’s a mixture of a lack of squad rotation (not necessarily depth) which has led to tiredness, poor tactics (why are we no longer playing that deep defensive line which conceded so few goals earlier in the season, and why are the attackers all so isolated in forward positions!?) and really a lack of effort from some of the players. They may be tired, but surely they could move a bit more for eachother!? Whenever someone gets the ball they have to beat a defender in order to make every single forward pass, so it more often just goes sideways and the move dies.
Wrong. Squid was a third rate defender who only looked good at Lyon because Cris was one of the best CBs at the time. This is very much the case with Silvestre who looked competent because Rio was one of the best CBs in the world in his prime. Just because they have a medal doesn’t mean they’re good. Alex Hleb has a CL medal, doesn’t mean he was world class.
There’s a serious lack of quality in this team. Less than half of the starting XI could get into other squads who win trophies. Who are we rotating in? Our depth is limited and mid-table at best.
Wenger needs legs in the midfield but refuses to believe that Diaby’s days are done so we put up with mediocrity until he proves to us that Diaby can last a whole season. That’s Wenger’s theme – wait and see but he fails to realize players have en expiration date and they want to win things while they’re playing so RVP and the like don’t have time to wait around for Wenger’s prophecies to come true.
The mere thought of our possible interest in this players frightens me… What have we become ? 😀
I’d wait to see if it is true. It could be that Juve want to get rid of him or swap him for Bendtner or something, rather than us really showing interest.
I prefer bentner or chamakh to this one. let’s not waste time and money on this one.