Opinion – The Arsenal midfield has to find a way to contribute goals

Arsenal midfielders have to do more in the goal-scoring department.

Arsenal endured another bore draw against Burnley this weekend and it seems there is no end in sight for the Gunners dropping points.

The draw against Burnley makes it five draws since Mikel Arteta became their manager late last year.

Arsenal has scored two goals in just two games from that run of results. Even more intriguing is the fact that no midfielder scored in any of those matches.

Defenders have popped up with goals occasionally, however, for the most part, Arsenal has relied on their attackers to score the goals.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Gabriel Martinelli have been scoring the goals that the club has needed but Arsenal’s midfielders have to start contributing goals as well.

The likes of Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil and Lucas Torreira have to make themselves useful in terms of goal contributions.

All great teams never rely on just a few players for goals. Football is a team sport and everyone should be contributing goals at some point.

It seems to me that Arsenal have been training to set their attackers up for the goals, but I don’t think that is the right way to go about it.

Mikel Arteta has to demand more from his midfield, the team has to practice more with midfielders coming late into the box and scoring or shooting from the edge of their opposition’s goal area and scoring.

Relying on Aubameyang for goals makes the team very predictable and that won’t change their fortune.

An article from Ime

13 Comments

  1. Unfortunately, I’m not sure there’s enough quality in there to achieve that. Ramsey was the last consistent goal scoring midfielder we had. Hopefully we get a decent replacement during the summer.

  2. If we want goals from midfield we need to play goalscorers in there like willock and the out on loan smith-rowe when he returns. Nelson is another who can get goals and can play in midfield, though it’s a bit different in the EPL1 to EPL2

    Also it might be time to give Eddie his big chance instead of a few minutes. That is exactly what Leeds were doing so why did we recall him?

    1. Yep agree on all accounts. I would love to see eddie and willock start the next PL match. Just to out rocket up the arse of ozil and lacca. I also think lacca may benefit from starting In cup matches to get confidence back.

      Willock has more energy than ozil and with time can be far better. I think he could also be a decent box to box if Nelson played in CAM.

      Common arteta take some risk and trust your youngsters. These older boys are not doing it at all

    2. sorry nketish is pretty poor so poor even leeds didnt want him. How anyone could say he was good doesnt know football. Saw him a while back and he came across as a selfish player.
      Nelson? wow amother below average compate him and nkeyiah to man u and chelseas youngsters chalk and cheese. Our academy serms to have dtopped its standards.

  3. Sanchez gave Ozil a lot of assists and Sanchez himself scored many goals by cutting inside from the left wing. Ozil’s goal tally dried up after Sanchez left, because nobody else is able to assist him

    Sanchez couldn’t get to the byline because he was too slow, but his number of sideways take-ons was very high

    Aubameyang, Pepe and Martinelli are supposed to cut inside and shoot from the wings like Sanchez, but they can’t do it consistently. The coaches should teach them how to do it more effectively and show some videos of Sanchez’s movements if possible

  4. Right people mention Liverpool a lot on here and quite rightly so at the minute, as a yard stick. Liverpools midfield hardly contribute to goals scored, except from set pieces. They dont actually create too much either, that has been thrown at them before but that doesn’t stop the team scoring, the three up top take care of that.

  5. The greatest achievement set before the coach and the team is harmony through balance and understanding of individual parts of the team. Arsenal is still trying to discover who is a part of the team and what can they do. We may have eleven players on the field (with a few more on the bench) but don’t have a team yet. When we do, it will be clear for all to see.

    And that takes time to achieve. So, everyone should take the chill pill. Teams are better organised nowadays to frustrate the living daylights out of you. In a bid to score goals you might be setting up your mug for a nasty sucker punch, because your shape is changed and your opponent might just take advantage. Every goal scored is a risk that pays off. Many such risks don’t pay off and you pay for it with by conceding.

    Scoring goals is not as easy as some think. No team will give you a free pass to pelt their keeper with pot shots. Not if they are Premiership teams. Not even Championship teams will allow you do that.

    A Liverpool or Man City team is not an accident. They are carefully built over time and with loads of cash too. Patience is never a common virtue with most Arsenal fans, so don’t expect most who visit blogs like Just Arsenal to be kind to any process of rebuilding and experimentation. But the fact remains that there is no magic to an effective and efficient team. Hard work, relentless hard work, readiness to invest decently and patience are crucial.

    And there are no guarantees.

  6. Its simple really we need to start shooting more, we have this habit of trying to pass the ball into the net, try scoring from outside the box, lets mix it up look at the long pass given to Auba by Luiz yesterday, lets speed up play create options for the player with the ball by moving into better scoring zones, currently its very easy to defend against us our players without the ball provide no movement way too static and pedestrian.

    1. agree, frustrating to see arsenal play the ball sideways (matteo) and taking to many touches on the ball(matteo) when there were great options to counter. Also we seem to play the ball behind players instead of infront of them when we do counter, or attack, that just slows up the attack.

      1. do you even watch tArsenal games? Matteo is one of the few that actually tried to drive but hard when no one supports him and NO ONE seems to move upfront
        The fraud that is xhaka has great stats because he goes side and back and regularly stops our quick play by going back and sideways.

      2. You obviously dont look at the game properly, blaming a young player playing to what he has around and singling one of our most promising and reliable performers is low.

  7. Go back to the Invincibles and you could rely on 15 goals each season (or very close) from both Pires and Ljungberg plus another 15 from the remainder of the midfield, then close to 10 from defenders – Then we had Henry scoring like crazy up front.
    Totally agree with this article

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