Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal squad walked away defeated on Thursday night at The Emirates against West Ham in what was a game with plenty of chances for Arteta’s side, but again, like a lot of other times this season, we just weren’t clinical enough in front of goal and it’s beginning to become a concern for Arsenal fans as we look to charge for the title in the second half of the season. But why can’t Arsenal seem to score like we were last season?
Last season our problems seems to revolve around the backline and our defensive set up, Arteta decided in the summer to bring in reinforcements in the backline and signed talented young Dutch defender Jurrien Timber, bring him straight into the starting line up and made it clear that he would be a key part of the defensive system, but unfortunately in the first game of the season, Timber was forced off the pitch against Nottingham Forest with an ACL injury that could see him miss the entire season.
Since then, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko and Tomiyasu have held the backline up and have looked solid all season. Unfortunately, Tomiyasu is another player we’ve lost to injury for an extended period of time, but other than Thursday’s game against West Ham, our defence has looked probably the best in the league all season and now it seems our problems lay with the front line.
On Thursday Arsenal had an astounding 30 shots on goal, 8 of them were on target, 10 shots were blocked, we had 18 shots inside the box and 12 outside the box, but still couldn’t manage to get the ball in the back of the net. With 78% possession and 77 touches inside West Ham’s box, we should have been pumping in the goals, but our front three just don’t seem to be clicking like they did last season. Scoring only 10 Premier League goals between them.
It’s become a big problem and I’m just not sure what’s changed since last season, it’s almost like we’ve taken one step forward and two steps back. Last season, the goals were spread around the whole attack and with everyone contributing it seems like we were scoring goals for fun and our only problem was conceding goals.
For me, Arsenal need to be looking at reinforcements in the January transfer window, if we want to be competing for the title, we need to be scoring more goals and there’s something not quite right about our front line at the moment but if we could bring in an experienced striker, I think that changes the whole set up and could make us a force going forward as well as in defence.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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