What has happened to two of last season’s goalscorers?

By Tony Attwood

It was interesting that after we published our little piece at noon yesterday Emery v Arteta; how they compare several drainpipes (sorry, “outlets”) picked up on the fact that ahead of the game Messrs Emery and Arteta, had managed virtually the same number of games at Arsenal

Stranger still these “outlets” even started quoting win ratios, something that we’ve noted off and on for 12 years but again the media hasn’t considered much… until this moment.

Of course they may have done their own research (after all it is not that difficult) but given their normal dislike of actual facts and figures,  I thought it was a funny coincidence. 

But anyway the knives are being sharpened because the fact is that Mr Arteta has not done as well as Mr Emery after 78 games at the club when measuring the win ratio.  But he is of course leading 1-0 on the trophy ranking.

As for the game 2-1 is a much better score than 2-0 because of the away goals thing, and the fact (that the media really won’t ever admit) that we have a decent defence.  The fourth best defence in the league in fact, just two goals more conceded than Manchester United and fewer let in than the eternally praised Leicester, Tottenham and Liverpool.

So if they can do their job next week, we just need to sneak that one goal.  But it is in the realms of attack that we are lacking.  

Pos	Team	Played	Goals Scored	Goals per game
1	Manchester City	33	69	2.09
2	Manchester United	33	64	1.94
3	Leicester City	33	60	1.82
4	Tottenham Hotspur	33	56	1.70
5	Liverpool	33	55	1.67
6	West Ham United	33	53	1.61
7	Chelsea	33	51	1.55
8	Leeds United	33	50	1.52
9	Aston Villa	32	46	1.44
10	Everton	32	44	1.38
11	Arsenal	33	44	1.33

And yet whichever way I look at it, it shouldn’t be like this.  With both Lacazette and Aubameyang available for much of the season, and with such creative work from Smith Rose and Saka not to mention Odegaard more recently, that ought to work.

But the goals are not coming

Player	Games	Sub	Goals	Penalties	Goals per start
Alexandre Lacazette	28	11	17	4	0.61
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	28	6	14	2	0.50
Nicolas Pépé	26	16	11	2	0.62
Bukayo Saka	37	4	7		0.19
Eddie Nketiah	14	14	6		0.43

If we compare this with last season we can see that Lacazette has indeed become more productive, as has Pépé.  But the big difference is that Martinelli and Willock have not been there.

Player	Games	Sub	Goals	Penalties	Goals per start
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	41	3	29	3	0.71
Alexandre Lacazette	30	9	12		0.40
Gabriel Martinelli	15	11	10		0.66
Nicolas Pépé	29	13	8	2	0.28
Joe Willock	20	24	5		0.25

Martinelli and Willock contributed 15 goals between them last season, Martinelli has got one this season and Willock went to Newcastle.

Now of course I don’t know why these decisions have been made, but with Martinelli it has not been injury.  This season he is recorded as having been injured for nine days and so been unavailable for two games.   This compares with a huge amount of the 2019/20 season when he is listed as being unavailable for 188 days of the season.

Maybe he lost form, or maybe he was another of those players who Mr Arteta dropped for disciplinary reasons – of course I don’t know.  But I have aired my disquiet before about the number of times disciplinary matters arise and it must be considered as a possibility.

Now it may well be that because of his hard line with the likes of Ozil, Guendouzi and Aubameyang (and possibly Martinelli) the manager has now got a squad that is utterly compliant to his wishes.  And certainly we have to admit that Xhaka seems to be playing very well after an earlier disciplinary altercation.  

But I never had the feeling under Mr Wenger that discipline was causing players to lose form or not be played at all.   He clearly had players in his squad who were harder to keep under control, but whatever he did it was only made public when Bendtner was spotted in night clubs.

I might be on the wrong track here, but it does seem to me disappointing to say the least that Martinelli, having contributed 15 goals last season, in a season interrupted by injury, has had so few opportunities this season.

I suspect we could lose him, and I fear he might then become a great talent elsewhere.  That has happened before at Arsenal of course, but that’s not really an excuse for it seemingly happening again.

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