Since Mikel Arteta took over as Arsenal’s head coach, there has been a noticeable increase in levels at the club, re-establishing us as one of the greatest clubs in Europe. How incredible is it that we were a whisker away from winning the Premier League last season but fell short of Manchester City?
After approximately six years in the cold, the Spaniard has Arsenal back playing in the Champions League for the first time.
One of the most important things Mikel did to create a team from the group of players he found at the club, was to let go of the players who felt they were superstars. He replaced them with young and hungry players who were ready to trust him and fight for him to restore glory to Arsenal.
Mesut Ozil, a brilliant and gifted midfielder, was among those let go; after his departure, Martin Odegaard took his place. Martin Ordegaard has since played at a higher level in that position and has no doubt totally replaced Ozil’s playmaking services.
Another key player who was shown the door was star forward Pierre Emmerick Aubameyang.
He was a fantastic player, a brilliant striker, and our captain, but he was let go owing to disciplinary issues. Mikel Arteta brought in Gabriel Jesus to replace him, but Jesus has yet to hit the goal-scoring milestone that Aubameyang had. Lest you forget, we had an article the other day that called out our forwards for not being clinical in front of goal.
In the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, the Gabonese international was so effective in front of goal that he scored 22 league goals a season in 36 appearances in each of the two seasons. His 22 goals in the 2018-19 season won him a share of the Premier League Golden Boot with Sadio Mane and Mohammed Salah.
We’ve never had a top goal-scoring forward with the stats Aubamayeng provided during his most successful seasons with us, but don’t you believe we could have someone like that if we signed Ivan Toney?
If Toney signs with us in the January transfer window, as rumours suggest, we will have replaced Aubameyang, as the Brentford man is Premier League-proven and can score at will, as he is a wonderful goal scorer and has already scored a lot of goals for the Brentford side. What if he surrounds himself with innovative players like Odegaard, Martinelli and Saka? He could no doubt be a menace n front of goal and be our new prolific hit man….
Darren N
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I would take Toney in a heart beat if not for anything but is ability to score an header, that’s one area Arsenal as been seriously lacking, sometimes when we break a press or hit a counter and our players get to the byline nobody to hit a onetime cross to in the box that’s why we often revert to playing the ball back to midfield to recycle possession again an look for gaps which may have been closed by the opponents.
Toney is both good with is feet and quite a dribbler and good finisher, and can also create chances for the team around him. For the price of 80m I think it’s good business alongside his experience in the league
Couple of observations:
1. So far, I haven’t seen much as far as dominant play from ” innovative players like Odegaard, Martinelli and Saka”. How many of the matches relied on late PK’s or own goals to win or draw? Everton… you’re kidding, right???
2. Who made the decision to spend 170 million for Rice and Havertz? Neither have improved play one iota?
carfino, yes you are right about Rice. He is a massive failure and 100% of Gooners all know he is a massive failure.
Now, however can I get out of this straitjacket!
One wonders sometimes 😇Jon, if there is another parallel universe!!
I wonder too. What match some fans watch 🤣🤣🤣
Carfino that sounds like an observation of someone being under the influence of a substance. A sober mind wouldnt make such a blurred observation. Arsenal hasnt lost a single competive game whilst all of the players you mention were in the team.
Indeed, the performance has been stunning.
Denial is a river Egypt.
What would you prefer? Playing good football like Burnley but being @ the bottom. Or playing solid & result orientated football.
Its obvious our style of play is different this season due to changes in personnel & Arteta’s philosophy to make us unpredictable. Our fluidity will come back as everyone gets to grips with their roles.
Cheers mate!! Im going for a few rounds myself now. About to knock off.
You’re overlooking how and why the current results have been achieved. Look how they struggled against Everton……Everton! It took an own goal to draw last week.
I’m not saying they will be in the top 6 but as of now, they aren’t scaring many.
We need a striker of Osimhen quality, not an average english player, with questionable bevaviour.
If you are a real football fan, you don’t need to be reminded that it takes just a goal advantage to score a win. In football sometimes you play fantastically sometimes you don’t, why didn’t you complain about the battering is PSV?
TRY HAVERTZ IN PLACE OF ODEGARD TO START AGAINST BOURNEMOUTH,DEAR MIKEL!
Havertz in midfield is a failed experiment mate.I think time he goes back to the C.F position.His stature will give defenders some work to do,head in some crosses and also allow Saka and Odegaard some space to chip in with more goals.
I just hope he can succeed at arsenal,C.F may be more ideal for him.
Great idea! Lets have Elneny in goal too, in placeof those two sub par keepers we have.
Meanwhile, back on Planet EARTH….!
😇Jon, AT LAST!! You have FINALLY recognised the importance of having Elneny as part of our squad. 😊😊.
Have I missed what your expectations are regarding MA this season?
KEN I think what you HAVE missed is my reply to you yesterday after our word battle on a certain thread.
I am glad you refer to Elneny in the same flippant way as I did above.
I suggest you read THAT message and digest it. And by doing so you will find the answer I gave yesterday to the same question you ask here.
If by any chance,you fail to find it, then do ask me the question again and I will need to repeat the detailed answer i gave , once again.
But I WOULD RATHER NOT NEED TO.
When will we see the end to this overpricing of average british players.
I’d rather spend 80m on quality strikers like lautaro, leao or even Vhlahovic (proven quality, just unfortunate to be caught up in a bad nonfitting system).
That would be amazing if that happened
But don’t keep your hopes up too high as other teams including Chelsea are interested. Hopefully Arteta is interested in him or someone similar and makes an offer
I think a CF of his quality is the missing link to our team
Interestingly, the majority of the six years in the wilderness regarding CL (including one season without ANY european football) was under our present manager, but that doesn’t fit the narrative…. so let’s quickly ignore that 🤔.
MA knew EXACTLY what kind of player Gabriel Jesus was and that WASN’T a Aubameyang replacement….as the author claims.
The author confirms that, when he contradicts himself by saying that IF we sign Toney, we will have replaced Aubameyang.
I’m no professional PL manager, yet it was obvious we needed a top goalscorer before this season began, but the four players bought in didn’t fit the bill, so who’s to blame for that?
I’m all for praising MA’s good work, but this lavish, god like OTT and nauseating covering up of his mistakes is not acceptable to all realists and deep thinking supporters.
In short, let’s go out and grab Toney and rectify this glaring mistake of not replacing Aubameyang.
Is it a mistake? What striker would we get for £100m with a proven top scoring record? Let’s say we could go to £150m. who could we buy that would guarantee goals? There are very few proven goalscorers out there and the ones that do exist attract the interest of the very wealthy teams. Haaland went city. Kane to Munich. Lewandoski to Barca etc. We will probably face fierce competition for Toney.
I think you’ve answered your own question JJ.
There are players out there and, as we did with Rice, we can compete with the likes of city.
That’s why we NEED CL football every season before any domestic cup – the top players want to play in the top competitions – PL and CL.
We need him bad. From the 6 league games and 1 community shield, we scored only 12. 3 penalties, 5 as a result of corners, only 4 of open play from which 1 against Fulham was when one of their defenders was out and their defense in disarray, and one against United when they threw everything at us in the last minute. So in fact we only scored two legit goals from open play, Oddegard against United and Saka against Spurs. That is shameful. No other way to describe it.
The signing of Toney would be a mistake. He won’t perform at the same level for arsenal. He’s not in the same bracket as haaland or others.
This is just english media hype for an English player. 80m is way too much. At best will score us 10 goals a season. Jesus is twice the player.
I recognise though very hard to find a good striker is the current market, I just don’t think it’s him in my opinion.
Toney to replace Nketiah for sure. Overall squad improvement guaranteed. Will continue building on the squad from there.
If we could get a decent deal selling Nketiah and get Toney for a good price, it would make sense but looks like Brentford will be asking silly money for Toney, so may be better to let some other mugs pay it
Toney notched up 20 goals in 33 games last season but 6 were penalties
So 14/33 = 0.42 per game
Jesus scored 10 non penalty goals in 16 games
So 10/26 = 0.38 per game
Not much difference there especially when you consider Jesus had two sub appearances and Toney none.
Obviously Jesus was playing in a better team but he brought a lot to that team. The team scored 88 goals, more than we have done in any other 38 games season. That is the stat that is most important. If we replaced Jesus with Toney we would add little more than good penalty taker and lose the player who knits the attack together.
Jesus could do with scoring more goals but replaing him with a 27 year old journeyman striker is not the answer.
No thanks. We need goalscorer like Sanchez not Aubameyang. We need player who can create a goal n score. That’s the different between them. Don’t even bother to ask me why not like Henry or RVP.
Arteta who took us out of Europe in the first place
We are not one of the greatest European teams until we at least win our domestic title