Arteta’s system doesn’t depend on one striker for goals. Last season, the Gunners had their best goal-scoring season since the Invincibles, scoring 88 goals without a high-scoring striker. Their goals are spread across the team.
With no super striker signed, Mikel Arteta must believe that he will still get them goals next season. As the Spaniard thinks, Stan Collymore has warned Arsenal that not signing a goal-machine striker could spell trouble for their title ambitions.
“I think Arsenal will start the season very well, and I think that the feel-good factor around Arsenal obviously is tangible, but I don’t think they’re a title threat,” he said in his exclusive CaughtOffside column.
“They may feel because of the strengthening and getting the likes of Havertz and Declan Rice that they’re more capable, but they need goals from a centre-forward position, and I think that’s a problem area for them. They should be going out and looking for a proper centre-forward; maybe could have, even should have gone for Hojlund and been in a race with Manchester United.”
There were games Arsenal failed to win last April, like the Southampton and West Ham games, in which if they could have been able to outscore their opponents, they would have won, but their star man Gabriel Jesus in those games wasn’t clinical.
I agree with Collymore in this new season, Arsenal would have been better off with a reliable goal-scoring striker, but after spending over £200 million, I doubt they can pull off such a deal. That may be next year’s deal, and if I were to recommend who they target, I’d recommend Napoli’s Victor Osimhen.
Daniel O
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I’m more concerned with our lack of a deep lying playmaker. It isn’t practical to attack for 100 mins, we need someone who can retain possession in midfield to help us see out games.
DAVID, I find yours a surprising view. Esp in view of us having many players who play deeper who can easily retain the ball.
We now have a great team ability to very quickly regain possession.
Indeed, that very point was what I MOST liked against Forest.
Yes, remember about Firmino and Vucinic. A pivot and high-presser like them is better than a striker who prioritizes his personal goal-scoring stats over his team
Remember about the old Ronaldo at Man United, who cared more about scoring than becoming the first defender of his team
We need someone who can bring his teammates into play and win/ hold yhe ball in the final-third
No, of course not. Arsenal is at the moment NOT
a title challenger. Get striking power! Now!
Yes he is right . We are not winning the league without a prolific striker . I know people will say the Liverpool did it and may be few other teams . But sorry , when few of the others team did, Haland was not playing .
When Messi was at his best , Real Madrid answered it by signing Ronaldo .
We need some one to compete with Halland , else we can not win th title .
We surely can fight till then end but to win it , we need a dedly striker .
Now the solution I do not have . May be get Ivon Tony in January .
I wish we could have gone for Oshimen, instead of Havrez . Could have incluided 65 mill paid to Havrez + Balgon to get Oshimen.
Liverpool did it but at that moment they have salad and mane both of them can score more goal than a super striker, so they did not need at all
Where is another Haaland? Or where do you suggest we scout for a PROLIFIC STRIKER?
I was thinking that too. They’re 10 a penny🙄
There is another Haarland in excactly the same place as Haarland before he went city. At another club. Why were we not in for Haarland? Why didn’t we try to buy Toney? Why didn’t we go for Isaaks ?It is the clubs job to identify the players and buy them. They are out there.
We have proper centre forwards. Of course, they are not like Haaland. However, there are very few of such players about so it’s a moot point suggesting we should have got a world class striker.
Hojlund is a talent but is by no means comparable to the likes of Haaland at this stage of his career and is unproven at this level.
That’s very true, relying on Gabby who is injury prone and Nketiah who will have one goal out of the twenty chances, i can’t see us competing. Harverts is very very weak and we would expect him to add more pressure but u can see what he is in just one game so far
I think we have enough, as always it will come down to injuries more than anything.
Injuries have cost us massively the last two seasons, but I feel we finally have just about enough depth to cope with them.
Balogun anyone? Rumours of spurs sniffing round him and a move to them would seriously piss me off.
We are going to struggle without a top striker
I see how Haaland is getting goals very easily and I ask myself when we will be at that level….
Every thing depends on Arteta. Sometimes, I wonder what and how sees this game. The need for a super striker was glaring since last season. But he will always remind of Jesus and Nketia. With the current arsenal set up, it will be a miracle to see either of them scoring 15 league goals in a season.
I keep saying it that we waisted fortune on Harvertz. Little money can be added to the money and we can be sure of a goal scoring striker.
Arteta’s love for Nketia and Harvertz will ruin our season. You can call me Prophet of doom. It doesn’t change anything from the fact. Only time will tell.
The question is, when will arsenal become a complete team without a weak link. If it’s not CB, it will be CM, LWB,RWB, CM or GK. It is absurd that after spending over 220M pounds, Edu and Arteta can’t block every loopholes in the team.
Every thing depends on Arteta. Sometimes, I wonder what and how he sees this game. The need for a super striker was glaring since last season. But he will always remind one of Jesus and Nketia. With the current arsenal set up, it will be a miracle to see either of them scoring 15 league goals in a season.
I keep saying it that we waisted a fortune on Harvertz. Little money can be added to the money and we can be sure of a goal scoring striker.
Arteta’s love for Nketia and Harvertz will ruin our season. You can call me Prophet of doom. It doesn’t change anything from the fact. Only time will tell.
The question is, when will arsenal become a complete team without a weak link? If it’s not CB, it will be CM, LWB,RWB, CAM or GK. It is absurd that after spending over 220M pounds, Edu and Arteta can’t block every loopholes in the team.
Anyone who listens to Collymore has my utmost sympathy.
There are many ways of skinning a cat – the adage goes. There are many ways of scoring goals – having a striker who can score 30 is just but one of them. Last season Arsenal scored a record 88 goals – something that we have never achieved even with the so called 20 goal strikers like RVP and most recently Auba. 88 goals is good enough to win the league. Our problem was not scoring goals,it was conceding them. We conceded 43 goals ; you can’t win while allowing that many,particularly at home. It doesn’t matter who scores the goals as long as we win games. It won’t matter if the striker of the day be it Jesus,Nketiah,Trossard or Havertz doesn’t score goals but enables other players to do so. I find it interesting that there are tens of articles here focusing on our attacking play yet there are hardly any focusing on how we can concede less and keep more clean sheets. It is the defence that wins you titles.
Yes we can lift the big jug without buying an out and out # 9, am more concerned we haven’t sign another powerful midfielder yet.
The sp*ds for many seasons had Kane scoring ~ 30 PL goals a season.what did they win?I actually believe that it’s better to have goals spread over.what would happened if your 20 goals CF gets injured/suspended or lost form.as we’ve seen last season,the advantage of having several goals others is that players go through dry spells,loss of form at different times during the season.so when one goes a difficult spell,this is the chance for another to step up.
That is a very good point Siamois
Thanks SueP!
We’ll also have to see what happens to Brentford while Ivan Toney is suspended .unless they have signed another CF??
They did draw 2-2 with the Spuds
I saw that Pat,but they better hope that Wissa and Mbeumo keep scoring regularly because I don’t see where else,the goals will come from!
Last season Toney scored around 30% of Brentford goals.
We need a reliable no9 not a false widow. A striker with presence that can hold up play, bring in other players and occupy the CBs. There were too many games last season where we were not able to releive our defence by hitting our players up front and then keeping it. Haverz and Jesus are not it.
Tell me one game we lost last season because of our strikers ….. Every game we lost last season was because of poor defense.. not every game you get to win scoring a lot of goals ..once your striking force get you 2 goals in some matches it’s left to the defense be force to make sure the opponent did not match that score line.. so shouting for another standard 9 is nothing but unnecessary rant by fans that will always complain no matter what the manager or club do
Of course a top striker will improve us. Remove Haaland from City and tell me they are better. Remove Osimen from Napili and tell me they are better.
Osimen would get marked or double teamed (as Martinelli and saka get now) which would open space for Martinelli, Saka, and Odegaard.
How would they be worse off for that? A silly argument that it harms other players.
Is the striker doing everything himself? Creating himself? Assisting himself?
So Odegaard gets 15 assists and 10 goals instead, is he harmed or the team?
Saka gets less goals but more assists, are we worse off as a team?
Shocking that some think Osimen or the like would not improve our team.
Who said scoring lots of goals? I have said a reliable 20 a season striker, that can keep the ball. There were many times in the last few games, that mattered, we were under pressure, cleared the ball and it came straight back. The pressure builds and we lose goals. Its about defending from the front. Its not about pressing, its about releiving pressure, not inviting it. Not one player in our attack for all their talent can do that.
And Haarland ruined city, didn’t he? I am sure next summer IF we dont win anything this season, we will see a proper target man next because we eventually copy city but in the mean time, we dont have a striker outlet. City are nor exactly struggling with theirs.