Arsenal Transfer News: Gunners Need to Bolster Defense, Rather Than Chase Goals

Arsenal have given up five goals since the start of the new year.

They've lost two of those three matches and they have 10 injured players listed on their injury report.

Plain and simple, they're a banged up team that needs some help.

Manager Arsene Wenger has done some of his finest coaching this season. The late transfer window push this summer, combined with patching numerous holes and injuries, has kept the Gunners' initially scant hopes of locking down Champions League play for next season alive.

But as the January transfer window reaches its final two weeks, the Gunners have been linked with a number of different scoring options.

They've already brought back the club's all-time leading scorer on loan, Thierry Henry, but reports still have them in the running for the likes of Lukas Podolski and Hugo Rodallega as well as a few more far-fetched possibilities like Eden Hazard and Leandro Damiao.

Yet the real talk centers on their need for defensive help.

Adding more goal scorers will make them more difficult to defeat, but this team needs to find a way to stop other teams from scoring.

With Eric Abidal now staying at Barcelona, the Gunners must turn their interest to the likes of Christopher Samba, Scott Dann and Aly Cissokho.

None are game-changing options in the back line, but Arsenal simply needs to find a way to keep players of any talent level actually on the field. One way to to do that is by adding new, healthy players.

The North London outfit takes on the super-scoring fiends from Manchester United on Jan. 22 and then embarks on a slew of winnable games before entering a difficult stretch that includes a Champions League home-and-away against AC Milan starting on Feb. 15.

Arsenal can certainly get to that stretch with as many as five straight wins (that would include an upset of United) but could easily see some disappointments if they don't fix their back line.

Rather than chasing goals, the Gunners need to stop other teams from finding the back of their own net.