Ian Wright has identified two Arsenal players who need to step up this season if the Gunners are to achieve success.
Arsenal is on the brink of winning the Premier League, having challenged for the title in the past two seasons. However, this does not guarantee an easier path in the current campaign.
Under Mikel Arteta’s management, the team has shown improvement, but it hasn’t been enough to secure the Premier League title.
While Arsenal was among the top scorers in Europe’s top five leagues last season, their scoring prowess hasn’t always been due to their attackers’ exceptional form.
Wright has highlighted Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli as two frontmen who need to improve. The Arsenal legend believes the team’s success could depend on the enhanced performances of these key players.
He said on the Wrighty’s House Podcast: “Do you know what I’m praying for? I think we were five goals off City last season.
“What I’m saying is, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli have to bring more. We’re talking about them having half-decent seasons, they have to have more goals in them than what we saw, that’s what I would say.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Although we score a lot of goals and it is a good thing when several players at the club can score for the team.
However, we need our attackers to do their job, which is to score more than they currently do.
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Is it that simple? You could say we were 2 points away so that is turning a draw into a win. Arteta is right to focus on the back, 1 Less goal conceded means we might only need to find 1 or 2 more goals in the team, does that warrant spending £80m on a new striker
Depends upon your viewpoint. Personally, I think Arsenal will be the stronger (where it matters ultimately) if they do get a striker.
I know fans always mention goals from across the team and the narrow margin of defeat in the title race last season etc. but there’s no guarantee that either the points total or the goals scored will be replicated (let alone bettered) this season.
It’s not really a question of just adding a goal here or there and that’s it because that assumes you’ll be doing what you did last season again to start with.
Looking at what Arsenal has as strikers it’s not particularly strong in depth. Yes, Havertz is the “poster boy” (quite rightly) but he hasn’t scored more than 17 goals (back in 2018-19) in any season in his career so far, although that could change as we all hope. Jesus is a No.9 in name only if we’re honest and Trossard scores but he’s not an out and out striker.
Having that extra firepower from a specialist rather than someone filling in would, I think, be that “insurance” for Arsenal. You don’t need insurance until you need it, but you can’t get it retrospectively.
But no decent striker is going to come as 2nd fiddle to Havertz… and that means if we do buy a big name then they will want to start which also means changing the shape and format of the team .
I think more likely is a winger to take the strain of Saka and make Trossard and Martinelli have to step up their game.
Merino hopefully will help create more and support Rice / Odeaard make even more opportunities for the front men
Exciting times but hopefully we can keep the momentum we have had since Jan which has been phenomenal
Well, it depends on who is available really. I wouldn’t exclude Arsenal bringing in a winger instead as you mentioned, but my preference would be a striker. It’s probably becoming more academic now because of time constraints.
I certainly agree about exciting times, but a little voice of caution tells me that after a single game so far, we really need to see how things go on the pitch over a couple of months or so to be confident in that. “Past performance is no guarantee etc.” as they say in the financial adverts. The Villa game will be a good starting point as potentially it’s a tricky one.
Simply as it may sound, Jesus and Martinelli scoring a couple of goals against certain teams would have given us the title as so he is right, and that is not say other things would not have like what you mentioned about conceding less goals, which is also right.
For me Jesus only lacks one thing in his game, better decision making in FINISHING, as he does the others quite well. Martinelli who is one of my top 2 favorites only behind SALIBA at Arsenal needs to improve his all round decision making, learn to sync his brain to his feet which is faster than the brain at the moment and try to look up around him often when moving with the ball, all of which are currently possessed by a certain LOOKMAN
I agree with your comment about Jesus, but that’s the point about him – he’s a “striker” who can’t finish (a contradiction in terms surely). He may improve this season, but he could hardly do worse from 4 PL goals in 27 games last season (and only 8 in 36 in all competitions). They really are awful stats for a No. 9 – some defenders would be more prolific goal scorers, and I don’t see how Arsenal can rely (which they may have to do at some time) upon a significant improvement from him.
I think he is right. We need 20+ from our striker, which could be possible and done by Havertz on current form.
And we need more goals from Martineli. Martineli or our left wing being more dangerous will also create more options for Saka because it will mean that not everything will go over our left flank and teams will have to be careful double-teaming Saka, leaving Saka fresher and more space.