by Tony Attwood
Now I may have miscounted, but it seems to me there is only one Arsenal player in the top 37 scorers in the Premier League this season. Just one.
Which is normally the cue for bloggers and journalists to start demanding that a) Arsenal need to buy more goal scorers, b) Arsenal need a new manager who knows how to recruit and use goal scorers.
Of course, such journalistic outpourings can be halted by journalists taking a quick glance at the league table, which highlights goals scored. This shows Arsenal slipping down to second place, although still five goals above the third-placed club in terms of goals scoring compared with being 14 points above the team in third placed team when measured in the conventional “points gained” method.
Here’s the top of the table by goals scored….
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Manchester City | 35 | 22 | 8 | 5 | 72 | 32 | 40 | 74 |
| 1 | Arsenal | 36 | 24 | 7 | 5 | 68 | 26 | 42 | 79 |
| 3 | Manchester United | 36 | 18 | 11 | 7 | 63 | 48 | 15 | 65 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 36 | 17 | 8 | 11 | 60 | 48 | 12 | 59 |
Now I suppose the reason this is never published, nor indeed mentioned (although I guess I may have missed an article since I don’t read every newspaper every day) is that it shows just how good Arsenal have been on a much lower budget than Manc.
And the fact is that Arsenal are the second-highest scoring team in the league, only four goals behind the club with the top individual goal scorer in the league. And yet Arsenal do not have a single player listed in the top 31 goal scorers in the Premier League this season. But at the same time Arsenal are top of the league on points and second in the league if measured by goals scored. All without a goalscorer in the top 31!!!!!
The fact is, of course, that Arsenal has, this season, adopted a different tactic from that of having the recognised goal scorer that so many bloggers and journalists were demanding that Arsenal should sign. For Arteta and co recognised what correspondents could not see, that there is an alternative approach to having the number nine who could score 20 goals a season. That is having half a dozen players who could each score a more modest number of goals, but whose goals together would exceed the total of virtually every other club.
And I thought I would bring this up now, not just to say that I was right – Arsenal didn’t need to buy a recognised goal scorer, which so many other correspondents seemed to be demanding. For they could be better off than virtually every other club by having a variety of goal scorers.
Arsenal’s top scorer is Viktor Gyökeres with 14 goals in the Premier League, 12 goals behind the leading goal scorer. Four players have scored more than Viktor has, two from Manchester City, and one each from Brentford and Chelsea.
Now that little list alone is enough to suggest that having a top scorer doesn’t take the club to the top of the league. But here is something a bit strange, because Arsenal are the second-highest goal scorers in the League this season.
Could that be because Arsenal have two players knocking in a large number of goals? Well, actually no, because Arsenal’s next highest goal scorers are each on seven goals and there are 32 players who this season have scored more than seven goals each.
Yet Arsenal have scored 68 league goals this season, just four fewer than Manchester City, with their top two league goal scorers. In fact Arsenal’s top scorer is 12 goals behind ManCs top goal scorer.
So how can a club have the second-highest number of goals scored in a season (so far) and be just four goals behind the highest scoring team this season, when at the same time their top scorer has scored 12 goals fewer than the top scoring player for the season?
The answer is two-fold. First, Arsenal do have a goal scorer: Viktor Gyökeres with 14. But Arsenal also have a range of other goal scorers – far more than other clubs in fact.
Eberechi Eze and Bukayo Saka each have seven league goals. Trossard has six, and after that, the numbers just mount up. Trossard has six, Zubemendi has five, Merino and Rice have four each… and I am only counting league goals here.
The fact is that journalists like simplicity because they tend to think their readers are a bit dumb and have attention spans of only a few moments. So they go for simple ideas – like Arsenal need a goal scorer. But they don’t look at alternatives to having just one goal scorer who gets most of the goals, but who might just get injured.
And this is often how it is. Journalists point out very simple issues, but leave the complex underlying issues unreported. Having a top goal scorer can be highly beneficial, of course… unless he gets injured. Having a multiplicity of goal scorers works better since it offers protection against injuries – and indeed against any referee bias that one might spot
Thankfully, Arteta either doesn’t read the newspapers or else reads them and does the opposite. Whichever it is it has, for the moment at least, taken Arsenal above ManC while spending far less on transfers.
I agree we just about have enough to win games, BUT! Where’s the excitement of a goal scorer, where’s the Henry type scare factor to scare the opposition?
Could Arsenal improve even more with an additional out and out goal scorer. The answer is Yes. It’s about improving to a level of world class football.
You are correct that we may not “need” a 20 goal plus striker, with our sharing of goals from set pieces and the likes,
But who cares about having just enough. We should always look to up grade and improve on what we have, and we need improving on the left wing and upfront to add world class greatness to this better than average team of goals scorers and tactical defensive play.
Our left wing has been ok, our striker options have also been ok, but not great and not world class, but instead of accepting that, let’s be Terry Henry brilliant up front, or Robert Pires, Mark Over Mars brilliant on the left.
What we need is to be the same next year for team contributed goals ( nothing wrong with that), but what we want is more Saka type players in the team.
We want more than just Saka scaring the opposition to death with his goal threats and the other players just chipping in with the goals.
Arsenal have not had that scare factor for a long time, and every time Arsenal play their is that element of doubt, even against teams like Bournmouth etc. who we should be laughing at and battering to death with goals galore.
But even Bournmouth are not scared of us, because we don’t have that world class goal threat apart from Saka and they all mark him out with a minimum of two defenders on his back all the time.
Can you imagine PSG or Bayern Munich playing and loosing against Bournemouth, no never!
So why do we get nervous when Arsenals play the likes of Bournemouth?
It’s because we don’t have that same scare factor as PSG or Bayern, and because we don’t have those brilliant individual goal scorers that we still need (for that confidence and for that scare factor that’s missing)
All we have that’s scary is Saka!. We need some Mbappe, Haaland, Vinicius Junior type players, you know those goal scoring scary type forwards in our team for next season, to bring back that scare factor to finish teams off 3 or 4 goals, not just one nil to the Arsenal and hold on to the one nil lead whilst being frightened.
I mean, sideways and backwards passing in the hope that someone will get the important goal, is not the Arsenal we are looking for.
Just my opinion. Bring back the Henry Bergkamp excitement days, not the one nil to the Arsenal and hold on to the (nail biting) lead heart attack watching days. IMO.
Need an Mbappe or Haaland type goal scorer and a victor junior type left winger to both keep up with the goal threat of Saka, to actually put fear to teams like Bayern, PSG and of course the not afraid to have a go at us, Bournmouth!