Arsenal was punished yet again for failing to be clinical in front of goal.
Most people who watched Arsenal lose 2-0 to Liverpool in the third round of the FA Cup (as has been the case in recent games) would say that the Gunners did everything right but score.
The Gunners had several chances to establish comfortable leads against the Reds at the Emirates in the FA Cup in the first half but failed. Arsenal’s lack of a clinical attacker was evident in that first half; they should have scored several goals.
Arteta and the boys now have only one win in seven games, scoring only five goals in these games.
After the game, everyone was saying the Gunners would have been better off with a clinical striker, without a doubt.
They were completely dominant over the Reds. Arteta’s tactics were exactly on point; it is just that they weren’t clinical. Looking at that game, like the other games except the Fulham game in this run of poor results, the issue wasn’t one of performance.
That said, one may think the club is now keen to recruit a striker, but Mikel Arteta played down transfer speculation after the defeat, even if Gabriel Jesus’ injury and his team’s lack of a clinical striker should have had him declaring he will evaluate his options and what the market has to offer.
“At the moment, it doesn’t look realistic. My job is to improve the players we have,” said Arteta about a striker signing this winter. “One thing is what we can do: we need to stay behind those players.
“Gabriel Jesus injury? Hopefully it’s not anything big, but we had a scan and we couldn’t take a risk.”
Do you believe Arsenal will be able to sign a striker? Can they afford to have only Nketiah available while Jesus spends his time in and out of the treatment room?
Daniel O
CALLING ALL ARSENAL FANS! Anyone who would like to contribute an Article or Video opinion piece on JustArsenal, please contact us through this link…
Perhaps this will at last shut the ‘we need a striker now…’ wagon jumpers (and articles) up.
Arteta said it..”We need to improve the players we have.”
Accept it! It won’t happen before the summer, if at all.
He’s been at Arsenal over 4 years now, time for him to start doing it then and stop talking about it.
Of course.
How does stating the exact opposite of what WE GLARINGLY NEED “shut” anybody up?
How do you win games if you can’t score?
Three articles today between 9 & 11 am on the striker subject. Do you think Arteta reads this blog?:
Same here, my take exactly!
Our squad is unbalanced and does not include one natural full back.That situation is down to bad management and an obsession with winning the possession game where our aim should be to win matches .
One would think “developing players” would be a continuous and constant thing. Perhaps it was the wrong word choice that did not get his point across?
IMHO they failed to capitalize on last year.
Unfortunately we find ourselves in a somewhat predictable situation. The striker position for example. Jesus is not the goal scoring striker but offers something different. A good option but never a 1st choice starting striker.
Nketiah offers nothing different, no plan B, just a lesser version of Jesus, minus the technique and creativity.
Havertz instead of a B2B midfielder was a poor decision, and it’s more evident by the day. Midfield is unbalanced and Rice has too much to do by himself.
We may have to wait until the Summer to correct these issues, and I fear another year squandered.
Durand I have already accepted this season wil be no more than a slight regressing on last year. We are an unbalanced team now and that IS on MA for wasting much needed money on comparative duds like Viera, Havertz, and awarding that foolish wage to HAVERTZ.
ALSO PAYING TOO MUCH TO MANY OTHER NON EFECTIVE PLAYERS AND FOR KEEPING THEM AT ALL, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE NEVER PICKS THEM.
The obvious fact is we are wasting far too much on non productive players while being short on vitally needed positions when we have either no one good enough or only injury prone players. Raya was simply not needed at all and I have no idea at all why MA thought it wise to waste £27 mill on him, when we eventually DO pay it, which we will. Sigh.
Far too many transfer mistakes and costly ones too. KEEPING DUDS HERE TOO AND ON FAR TOO MUCH WAGES. So many now that I am fast losing confidence in MA s judgement and his insistence on rigid, static, team shape and a far too SLOW passing style.
BTW, Ben White by himself, yesterday, took almost four minutes in total to take all his throw ins. Ridiculous!
I understand Arteta is still rebuilding a squad but surely he always knew that a decent striker should have been a priority last summer? Nketiah was never going to be the answer and Jesus is prone to injuries. I would rather have had a striker or Havertz. Even Nelson was more effective last night but for some odd reason got subbed? What annoys me more is the late substitutions. Surely ESR should have been on for Havertz at least 20 minutes earlier?
We’re not getting a striker at least until summer now. So you can kiss goodbye to any sort of celebration this year. We’re likely to drop further in the EPL and I just don’t see us going far in the CL with this miss-firing squad. I hope I’m wrong but the evidence looks too strong.
Oops, I meant striker OVER Havertz. Sorry.
Probably last year playing Artetas way, is the best it is going to get. It was interesting to see Arsenal are one of the slowest passing teams in the prem. Only City was lower. Its obvious who Artetas is copying but Pep is far more astute than Arteta and can sort out his problems, when they arrise. Plus, there is only one Pep.
I’m boldly saying Arsenal must sign a striker this month if they are to compete for the troohy
No incoming striker, not this month AT LEAST!
IMO, the team cannot be improved without changing anything.
If FFP means we cannot get a striker, so be it. The team can still be improved.
Problems: No full backs. Poor tactics. No money to buy a striker.
Solutions: Re-call loans for Tierney (LB), Norton-Cuffy (RB) and Mika Biereth (CF). Change to orthodox wingers. Ben White or Kiwior can be stand ins for the CB pairing as long as MA rotates the squad. Work hard on the new formation using orthodox wingers and we have a plan B.
Straightaway the team is better and you can always go back to inverted wingers for playing against selected teams.
Not a penny spent.
Arteta probably expected his front men to deliver as they did last season when they were the second highest scoring team in the league. But that has not happened. None of our goal scorers of last season has lived up to last season’s billing. Opposition defenders have learnt how to stop them.
That’s what should have been foreseen last summer to improve that frontline with a class striker instead of spending all that money on Kai Harvetz.
There is also a noticeable streak of selfishness among those front men; every one of them seems to want to be the one to score. I noticed that with Saka yesterday. That’s not how they played last season
Ideally, we would have signed a top level striker. However, this is not at all straightforward; as some seem to be suggesting. There are a limited number of proven strikers at the top level. If you consider the level below the elites, such as Kane, all come with caveats and significant risks. This is one of the reasons for massive outlays on relatively unproven players by some other top teams.
Arsenal are not at a level where we can go out all out in a bidding way for the very best strikers.
Last season was the first in many years when we could truly go toe to toe with most of the best teams in Europe. There were always going to be some bumps in the road as Arsenal have not yet been properly re-established as amongst the elite clubs. What the team needs now is support not the pervasive negativity that seems to have taken root once more amongst some fans.
Arteta doesn’t need a six-legged striker if he fails to improve the players with quicker pace, precision passing, targeting and timely shooting. We have watched players who fall too often at every contact. What is Arteta imparting to improve the players and whenever opportunity called, what was his evidence-based request to field gaps in the team?
We have some really decent full back coming through the youth set up in Reuell Walters & Lino Sousa. Yet we stick to White & Kiwior who are both centre backs. This doesnt make any sense to me in the slightest. Arteta doesnt seem to bring through any youth players, i cant name one who he has given a proper chance to.
You have a good point wee fella. But if you put it in proper perspective, you would want to sympathize with Arteta.
You see, the man is yet trying to establish himself as a manager and, in particular, as a successful coach of Arsenal Football Club. He needs results and trophies to achieve these. That’s probably one of the reasons he’s loathe to experiment. This, I think, also makes him reluctant to rotate.
Coaches who give young players the minutes are, generally speaking, those who have won the confidence of the fans and club ownership and can therefore afford to try things out without too much fear of the consequences