Despite Arsenal’s usual blistering start to the season, we have dropped away in the title race through our lack of goals, and us fans have (obviously) blamed our strikers like Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott for not putting away the chances created, especially by our assist king Mesut Ozil.
Arsene Wenger has admitted that we have created even more chances than we did in last years campaign, but it wasn’t our strikers fault that they were not converted. “We had a big differential this season between the number of chances we created at home and the number of goals we scored, which was not the case last year,” he said. “We created two expected goals per game last year at home. This year, we’ve created 2.5 expected goals per game.
“Last season we scored 114 per cent of our expected goals, this year we’ve scored 50 per cent, or 55 per cent.
“As long as the team comes to you, sits back and waits for you to come out, if you do not score, they never come out. After, if they score with their first chance, you make it more difficult.
“The defensive quality of the teams has become much more efficient. If you look at Manchester City, they take the game to their opponent. Chelsea take the game to their opponent. We’ve all dropped points by doing that.
“We are an attacking side. I don’t think you can pretend to be a big club and say you only want to defend.
“We have that responsibility and we have to stand up for that and continue to develop the quality of our game. It doesn’t mean that we have to change our style, it means we have to be better with the style we play.”
Well Wenger has all the statistics at his fingertips so he knows the facts. So if the defenders in the Premiership are getting more efficient, maybe Arsenal should buy a more efficient striker to break them down? Just a thought….