When Arsenal signed Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge in the summer, he was supposed to be the backup to the ‘marquee attacker’ through the door.

The plan was to bring in a more established name as well, but the pursuits of Morgan Rogers, Vinicius Jr and Julian Alvarez all came to nothing, and Arsenal still went ahead and sold both Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli. Tzolis ended up as the only replacement, which was quite the gamble at the time and still is now.

His start has been a mixed bag. He began brilliantly and has four assists to his name, but he struggled in the away games at Aston Villa and Brighton, and he’s now out for a few weeks after picking up an injury on international duty. Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke, who impressed on the left against Leeds, are the obvious options in the meantime.

Arsenal monitoring Christos Tzolis’ former strike partner

Despite all that, Arsenal look ready to go back to Brugge. According to journalist Nicolo Schira, the Gunners, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich are all monitoring striker Nicolo Tresoldi ahead of next season. Barcelona and Tottenham were interested in the summer, but Brugge considered him not for sale.

Tresoldi scored a hat-trick as Brugge beat Inter Milan 4-3 at San Siro on Wednesday night, becoming the first player in the club’s history to score a Champions League hat-trick. That takes him to nine goals in all competitions this season, four of them in Europe.

The 22-year-old already knows Tzolis well. The pair formed a partnership at Brugge last season that brought Tresoldi 23 goals, and Tzolis 17 goals and 23 assists in the Belgian league. Brugge signed him from Hannover 96 for just €7.5million in 2025, but he will be worth a lot more than that now.

Arsenal are clearly planning to bring in another striker. Viktor Gyokeres hasn’t scored since May and failed to register a shot on target again against Lille, with Mikel Arteta clearly preferring Kai Havertz to lead the line. Whether Tresoldi is the right solution is another thing, but he showed what he can do on the biggest stage last night.