The simple reason why Arsenal absolutely do not need a new number 9

 

 

By Tony Attwood

An article in the Telegraph recently opened with the line, “Successful managers, or head coaches, find it hard to resist seizing control when success gives them the opportunity. Mikel Arteta works under a sporting director structure at Arsenal but he may feel that two successive second-place finishes gives him the scope for greater direct control.”

We also have “Mikel Arteta set to become Arsenal’s highest-paid manager ever” from Pain in the Arsenal, which is quite possibly true, and if true would surprise no one.   Our recent pieces such as Arsenal are now where Man C was one year ago. Can we overtake? and others which I will list at the end have shown the phenomenal consistency of development at Arsenal under Arteta.

To summarise, Arsenal are unique in having been improving over the last four seasons in terms of points, goals scored and goals conceded.  Only one metric of those three across four seasons has gone down once.  In 2022 Arsenal let in more goals than in 2021.  But otherwise, points have gone up, goals scored have gone up and goals conceded have gone down in each Arteta season.

Now that must have an impact on what Arsenal do next.  So when we read in Canon Stats Is Benjamin Sesko the pure ‘9’ Arsenal need? the immediate answer is likely to be “no”.   Not because he’s not a good player, but because putting him in the forward line would disrupt the play that is going on around that position.

It is not so much the player that is at odds with Arsenal, but rather that he is “a pure number 9”.   Arsenal don’t have a pure number 9 except perhaps Eddie Nketiah who played 10 league games and scored five.  Not a bad return. 

What we do have however is Kai Havertz.  He scored 13 league goals, which against 30 games is not much.   Except take a look at when he scored.

Up to matchday 24 (that is mid-February) he had scored four league goals (against Bournemouth, Brentford, Luton and Brighton).

By the end of the season – that is after 14 more games, he had scored 13 goals.   So four goals in 24, and then nine in 13.  That ratio of nine in 13 is 69%.

Now that is not as good as Haaland who got 27 in 29 (93%), but then no one else is as good as Haaland.  But at the rate of nine in 13 games, if extended over the whole season would give 26 goals, which is still not at Haaland’s level but not far off.

In fact the second-highest scorer in the league last season was Cole Palmer with 25 in 40 games with a percentage of 62.5% goals per game.

So in the second phase of his time at Arsenal, Havertz was scoring at the second-highest rate in the league.   And here’s another thing.  Havertz scored one penalty. This compares with Palmer who scored nine, and Haaland who scored seven.

In short, take penalties out of the equation and Havertz in his last 14 games for Arsenal was the top scorer in the league.

Now of course it can be argued, as it so often is, “that you can prove anything with figures,” and those people who take that view can of course dismiss all the data and do everything on emotion.  Say, “Arsenal need a number 9” enough and such people will believe it and demand it, and publishers will publish it.

But clubs are run on data because quite simply the league table is data.  How do we know who has won the league apart from looking at the data?

So using the most simple data that we have,  here is the fact that Havertz joined Arsenal after a terrible spell at mind-bogglingly disorganised and chaotic Chelsea.  With Chelsea he had started 38 games and scored nine in all competitions, 

He took a while to get going at Arsenal, but in his last 14 games, he was the league’s top scorer, without taking any penalties.   And now journalists and bloggers want to bring in a number 9 – when we have one who is effectively out-scoring all the number 9s in the league, and doing so without counting penalties.

Now of course some will say, “But he is not a number 9” because he is not playing at centre forward.   But the issue is not the formation, but the number of goals scored.   Arsenal scored 91 goals last season – the club’s fifth-highest league total ever.  And the four higher league totals were in seasons of 42 games rather than 38, and three of those four were in the 1930s when Arsenal were wiping the board against everyone. 

Now in one sense, I don’t mind at all when people write that Arsenal desperately need a number 9, because I trust Arteta to do the right thing, as he has done so far.   But it does seem a bit sad that after one person writes such things, lots of people start to believe it, for no reason other than it is then repeated in lots of newspapers.