Alan Shearer: Arsenal must sign a world-class centre-forward to win the Premier League

Alan Shearer thinks Arsenal must sign a "world-class striker" if they are to win the Premier League. The 45-year-old pundit watched the Gunners' 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday (17 April) and subsequently claimed Arsenal lack the cutting edge needed to end their title drought.

The north London club have not won the Premier League since 2004 and Shearer has urged Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger to invest in a quality centre-forward this summer, suggesting French striker Olivier Giroud is not good enough to fire them to the domestic championship. Arsenal spurned a number of chances to defeat Palace at the Emirates but could not deliver the killer blow.

"They won't win the league until they sign a top class, world-class striker, who can get 25 or 30 goals a season," Shearer said of Arsenal's current troubles on Match of the Day. "I've been saying all season that they're at least two players, top players short, and my view hasn't changed on that."

Shearer's remarks come shortly after the Arsenal boss suggested that the core of the current Arsenal team will not be changed during the summer transfer window. Despite calls to invest in the squad in the coming months, Wenger suggested Arsenal will not make many, if any, major additions.

"If you look at the top three teams, you will see they have not changed their team a lot," Wenger said, as quoted by the Mirror. "We have to strengthen our squad but it's not obvious to find the players despite the money the English clubs will have. Of course we will work very hard to do that. We are already working. But we have to find the players and that is not easy.

"The core is not good enough? That's an outside point of view. We have again to analyse it in an objective way. And this team has won many games and the quality of many games was at top level."