23-year-old 'hero' forward says playing for Arsenal is his 'dream'

Arsenal may have got themselves a brand new transfer lead up front.

The Gunners are currently well stocked in attack, but obviously there’s always the opportunity to look at new players.

Now, Hellas Verona striker Cyril Ngonge has revealed that Arsenal are his dream club.

Interesting, the Gunners were linked with the 23-year-old forward back in November 2018.

At the time, The Mirror reported that Unai Emery’s Gunners were monitoring Ngonge, along with Liverpool.

The Belgian was playing for Club Brugge’s academy at the time, and was quite prolific for their youth side.

Since then, Ngonge has played for a number of Dutch teams before moving to Verona in January 2023.

He helped the Gialloblu survive relegation from Serie A on the final day of the season with a brace against Spezia.

Their 3-1 away win kept them up on goal difference, as their opponents on the day went down instead.

Ngonge was labelled a ‘hero‘ by sections of the Italian media amid links with Fiorentina.

And despite stressing he’s happy at Verona, he nonetheless mentioned his dream of playing for Mikel Arteta’s Gunners.

Ngonge, speaking to Tuttomercatoweb, said: “My dream has always been to play for Arsenal.

“But now I’m in Italy, I love it so I might even want to stay. Just kidding, of course.”

Our view

It’s always nice when a player names your club as his dream destination.

And with Arsenal back in the big time, expect more and more players to openly express their desire to play for them.

Obviously Ngonge was speaking tongue-in-cheek (ish), and his future in the mid-term will no doubt be with Verona.

Nonetheless, it didn’t take him long to become a club legend with an absolutely crucial brace to keep the club up.

Arsenal may well look to send scouts out to Italy next season and see whether Ngonge has what it takes to do well for the Gunners.