After the tough 2-0 loss against Liverpool at home, a lot has been said, in the media and by the fans, and everyone seems to be pointing fingers where they think the problems lay, but for pundit and ex Manchester City player Micah Richards, Arsenal’s main problem is a striker’s presence up front and has pointed out the some what lack of planning around bringing in Havertz in the summer, over a out and out dominant striker.
When asked on The Rest Is Football Podcast about where he thought things went downhill for Arsenal, Richards pinpointed when Arsenal bought Havertz in the summer, and said this “You have to pay £60 Million for a player who, no disrespect, if I’m looking at Smith Rowe, I know he has had his injuries, but he can do that job Havertz can do in my opinion”.
“So that 60 Million can be invested in a forward player, we know what Jesus can do in a forward role. We know Nketiah towards the end of the season last season, played very well, but you are thinking you are up against Liverpool and Man City, who have firepower”.
“A striker had to be a priority for me and now you are seeing these little moments, the game vs Liverpool it was evident, when you just need someone to have a cool head in front of goal. At this moment in time Arsenal have not got that”.
But personally, I think that’s a bit harsh on Havertz as he’s been one of our best players this season, in my opinion anyway and yes, we probably could and should have invested in a new world class striker over three midfielders, but Havertz hasn’t exactly been played where he was at Chelsea. Maybe Arteta did bring him in as a versatile midfielder/striker for the squad but until the game against Liverpool, we hadn’t really seen what Havertz could do up front.
Money’s tight due to FFP and we have to be careful what we’re spending, so maybe looking into the squad more and doing whatever we can with what we’ve got is the best option we have (unless we sell some players) and, personally, I think Havertz played well on the weekend in that front position and if anything it was our defence that let us down so maybe putting Havertz up front is the key to success.
Although I’d love to see a new world class striker in the side, it’s hard because of financial issues and such and maybe investing heavily in January just isn’t an option after last summer, but Arteta is going to have to figure something out and hopefully bounce back from this bad run of games.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?
Daisy Mae
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Havertz has been scoring goals recently. Arteta should try him as CF for some time. We needa NEW CF this January. Send Eddie Nketiah on loan. Play G. Jesus on the RW/LW.
Perhaps we should have sold Viera, Nketiah and Nelson and not paid Raya’s wages.
Put that lot together and we could afford a top striker and keep Havertz.
Agree100percent
Or do exactly that and buy a proper box2box midfielder that we actually needed rather than Havertz
Agree with that.
Today TBR has been linking Arsenal to a striker that has scored just 8 goals from 22 games for the sum of £50 million. Not only has he a bad 8 goals to 22 games ratio, TBR has the audacity to say that he has been quoted as a 6ft 4 inch striker that is better than Haaland. TBR must think Arsenal Management is foolish enough to consider a striker with worst STATs than the strikers thet already have, and that includes Havertz. Havertz just needs quality coaching to stop his dithering in front of goal and to pull the trigger first time. He had 5 opportunities to score against Liverpool and the Liverpool manager named him after the game as Arsenal’s greatest threat against his team. If he was more decisive, he could have scored 5 against Liverpool and ripped them to shreds. He has the skill to be in the right place at the right time to becomeca great natural striker, but he needs extra coaching to pull the trigger without hesitation or dithering on the ball too long. Maybe he needs a run in the side as the main striker to gain confidence and practice. He has been a threat against two of Europes best teams in Liverpool and Man City when he has played a strikers position in this Arsenal side, so maybe he just needs more time playing as a center forward and more specialised coaching from a knowledgeable former striker. If I was Arsenal I would higher Henry, Alan Shearer or Ian Wright to tutor him.
👍daveg, “specialised coaching” or coaching full stop. Why is Mikel Arteta being paid the big pounds? Why stop at Havertz? Nheketia, Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus’s can’t hit the target and finish to save themselves.
Just don’t touch Martineli, he might be out of form right now but he will rise again for sure.
I would have thought that the recruitment of a natural left back would be a priority for Arteta as neither the injury prone Zinchenko nor a centre back like Kwior are up to the task.
It doesn’t matter who we sign really if the tactics are poor and predictable.
Arsenal could get one of the best consistent strikers in the world for £52 million, and that striker is the mexican Santiago Gimenez. He regularly scores more than 20 goals every year. He is still only 22 years old. The club are willing to sell for anything over £50 million. He has also so far scored an impressive 18 goals from only 16 games and frequently scores in Europe and international level. Westham are interested in making a £52 million offer. If Arteta or Edu miss out to Westham for this world class striker, then they should both be sacked.
👍
I am convinced that Willian’s pre-retirement contract from Chelsea to Arsenal over three years ago, was a bargain – a steal – compared to Kai Hvertz’s disastrous deal. A debacle, in fact. 65M plus 320K pw down the drain.
Kudos to Fulham for making good use of Arsenal rejects or flops. (Leno included).
Williams is a good player but he gets injured a lot and for some reason like Leno he did not perform well at Arsenal. Leno lacked good passing ability at the back and Williams lacked the final quality pass. But fare due to them both flourishing at mid table Fulham. Horses for courses as they say.
However. I think Fulham would be relegated if it wasn’t for the best midfield ball winner in the league and that’s the brilliant Palhinha. He is the only DM to outplay Rice ever time they meet.
We would have a concrete brick wall in our midfield If we had Rice and Palhinha playing together at Arsenal. Wishful thinking.
It seems we have made a $22m offer to Getafe in La Liga for their spanish forward Borja Mayoral, a 26 year old.
He is rated the following numbers out of 100 or 20 in the football database website:-
Overall 73/100
Physical 12/20
Mental 11/20
Technical 12/20
Offense 13/20
Defense 5/20
Maybe I am wrong, but he doesn’t look to have set the world alight!
But since we appear to be nearly skint in January, perhaps this is the best we can do.
The offer of $22 million, was actually for them to pay Arsenal to take him on if they also give Arsenal $22 million with 50 % sell on fee. Clubs sometimes offer cash plus a player to a better club in the hope that the player will get better and therefore demand a higher sell on fee that they can split down the middle later on. It all makes sense considering how s–t he is.
I’d rather their injured main CF in Enes Unal if at all we want to sign any this month. Though Borja has stepped up in Unal’s absence but i prefer the latter between the two given what i’ve seen from both strikers over the years.
Get a striker who is a go getter.Someone who can score as many goals as he can so as Our team can have a reputation it had many years ago.Moreover we need a goal keeper who can save us from being scored easily.
I remember being linked with Borja Mayoral when he was first breaking through I think he began at Madrid unless I’m mistaken. Personally, I don’t believe this rumor I reckon it’s his agent testing the waters
The player that Dawg put forward Gimenez looks good on paper so I’ll be interested to see if Dawg is right about that one further down the road
As for Havertz he doesn’t look esp suited for a midfield role he looks awkward at times and the midfield is unbalanced, he does not yet look to have gelled and he needs to be all-round good to hold onto a central midfield role
Sorry not Dawg’s it’s Daveg
Did someone say Harvertz played well against Liverpool? They must have been watching a different game? Let us come with desperate solutions to try keep him in the squad.The fact is ESR is better than Harvertz. He Shud not start games. As for the striker we need, how about Serhou Guirassy. He is on fire for Stuttgart as we speak and has an active release clause of £ 17m and available for much less. Check him out.