- The problem with counting the number of home grown players in Europe
- Up and down we go. Does the yoyo effects between the leagues matter?
By Tony Attwood
Arsenal have now signed Viktor Gyökeres, Martín Zubimendi, Noni Madueke, Cristhian Mosquera, Christian Nørgaard, Kepa Arrizabalaga, and Marcell Washington. That is seven players totalling £195m.
Five players have left, only two of them getting a fee, (that totalling £9m), three leaving on a free, one being a free agent at the end of his contract, and two (Neto and Sirling) gong back to their owners. So in pure number terms we are two players up, but in quality terms, I think that is quite a step forward. But as we only had 22 registered players in the first team “25” last season, there is no problem with the registrations.
What it means a much stronger bench, a lot more rotation, and more fulsome recovery times from the vast array of knocks and injuries that the opposition teams are now using as a way of curtailing Arsenal’s style and approach.
In terms of positions, Arsenal have signed one out-and-out striker, one winger, two midfielders, two defenders, and one goalkeeper; so effectively signing new men across the whole pitch.
The aim of the transfers is simple: to reduce the number of draws Arsenal ended up with last season and turn six of those 14 draws into victories – something that would have given Arsenal the trophy last season – and that despite an injury list far in excess of that sustained by any other club.
Along the way the club wants more goals – with Arsenal in the coming season returning to the scoring levels of the two previous seasons in which the club got 89 and 91 goals – either of which last season would have made Arsenal the top scoring team of the campaign – and along with that would undoubtedly have achieved that target of turning more than six of those draws into victories.
Here are our figures over the last three seasons – the drop off in the number of goals being undoubtedly down to injuries. Although we might also care to remember that in winning the double in 1997/98, Arsenal only scored 68 goals, one fewer than last season. The difference was there were only nine draws.
So here are the totals for the last thre seasons, and the aim of course is not just to emulate the high scoring of 2023 and 2024, but to go even further..
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Arsenal 2023 | 38 | 26 | 6 | 6 | 88 | 43 | 45 | 84 |
| 2 | Arsenal 2024 | 38 | 28 | 5 | 5 | 91 | 29 | 62 | 89 |
| 2 | Arsenal 2025 | 38 | 20 | 14 | 4 | 69 | 34 | 35 | 74 |
For although Arsenal slipped back in terms of the number of points last season, they still had just four league defeats in the league. In only four seasons in their entire league history have Arsenal had a smaller number of defeats. Three in the double-winning season of 2001/2, again in 2007/8, just the one in 1990/91 and of course none in 2003/04.
However, the one other thing Arsenal had in those seasons, which we did not have last season, was a top goal scorer knocking in a huge number of goals. Twice that was (of course) Thierry Henry with 39 and 32 goals in the 2004 and 2002 seasons. Previously Adebayor got 30 in the 2008 season, and Alan Smith scored 27 in the 1991 season. Whether Viktor Gyökeres can meet or beat that total remains to be seen, but he has certainly been doing that in Portugal.
Indeed, one of the other factors to consider is the way in which the opposition will react to facing Viktor Gyökeres.
Part of the magic of the 2022/23 season was that Ødegaard, Martinelli and Saka each scored 15 goals – a total that itself gave oppositions a much harder task in defending against the side, since they had no idea where the goals were actually coming from.
Now it may well be that Ødegaard will be playing a little deeper this coming season (although he could still be taking free kicks from range) but the opposition will have Martinelli, Saka and Gyökeres to cope with, and that could force the defences into possitions that allow one of the three to break free, or indeed allow Ødegaard to sneak in unobserved.
Of course, negative points are already being made, not least about Gyökeres age, but such commentaries ignore the fact that Ian Wright was just on 28 when he joined Arsenal. He was then our top scorer for six consecutive seasons knocking in 30+ in five of those six seasons.
We also still have Havertz, which brings us to the one thing that could hold Arsenal back this coming season, which is the negativity that is now normal when Arsenal sign players. Just think of the negative response there has been to the signing of Sterling, White, Raya and Merino, and contemplate how much impact that had on the early performances of each of them. Sterling he was never able to pull himself out of that negativity, which the others have done so – but just imagine how much more effective from the off all four players could have been if they had not been met with negative comments about their signing from journalists, and then following their lead, from supporters. Even a minor improvement in the early days, because there was no negativity, could have made a difference.
But as this window’s transfers show, with an organised campaign against one signing already, there are still many journalists and “supporters” who love the chance to knock an Arsenal signing before he’s even played a match. And that is something most clubs don’t have to cope with.
I thought it wouldn’t be too long before those who defended ‘the no out and out striker ‘ tactic would change their tune and
applaud the return to ‘the out and out striker’ tactic.
At the same time the media that started the mantra ‘Arsenal need an out and out striker’, will soon be applauding their ever glowing smug faces and at the samme provide us with a 101 reasons why we bought the wrong striker, or this or that, whatever.
Dis anyone see the highlights for Arsenal v Newcastle? For a friendly game Guimares sure does love to foul Dowman.
I have been thinking as to why the owners of the club who have a reputation for not ‘flashing the cash’ have allowed yet another 200 million to be spent on players.
Clearly they believe in Arteta’s management of the team otherwise the cash would not have been forth coming.
I think may be the thinking is this: We can’t stop the machinations of the powers that control English football but may be we can beat them by being prepared for what they throw at the club.
In the past seasons we have been wounded and defeated by their machinations.
Players have been bought so that:
This time round we can not stop their machinations but we can beat them.