The ex-West Ham forward Leroy Rosenior claims that Arsenal’s new signings, who have forced Arteta to tweak his system to accommodate them, have held back Eddie Nketiah.
On Premier League productions Podcast, he questioned the summer signings’ impact on the Arsenal attack following a tactical tweak upon their arrival
Rosenior claimed, “There’s an element of experimentation at Arsenal at the moment that I don’t get. Someone just mentioned Eddie Nketiah. I thought this year, after the season he had last year, he’d push forward, but I think the signings have held him back. Havertz has gone in, Rice has gone into midfield, and Partey is playing in this hybrid role, and Havertz is playing behind Trossard. They’re great signings, good players, but it’s caused Arteta more problems that he hasn’t solved yet.”
Nketiah has done the job up front but certainly hasn’t been ineffective. It is hard to link his wasting of chances to the new signings. However, we can agree that Arsenal ought to be more clinical in front of goal than they are.
Declan Rice has been brilliant at central midfield; however, Kai Havertz has struggled to impress in the attacking midfielder role, which begs the question: if the German international was an instant hit at the Emirates, would Arsenal forwards like Nketiah have had a better start to the season? I think they would, and that was clear in Arsenal’s last game.
Fabio Vieira, in Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Fulham, replaced the ex-blue and went on to cause havoc for Fulham; he not only won the penalty that Saka scored, but he also set up Nketiah for his second goal of the season.
Surely anyone playing as Arsenal’s striker would thrive with a better No. 8 playing alongside Odegaard.
Darren N
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All signings were good except Kai
Nketiah is doing well. I hope he gets to start agaisnt Man U.
We do need to create more real goal scoring opportunities, than we have in the first 3 games, and then I believe he will score loads of goals.
I didnt understand Arsenal’s decision to buy Havertz in the first place and certainly not for £65m and £250k per week in wages . It’s a classic case of the coach thinking that he can get more from a player than anyone else has been able to do .
His integration into the side has been a difficult one and if he was to be able to “fit in” then this was going to happen during pre-season and Arsenal’s first three league fixtures against lower ranked opposition.
Now we are faced with a tougher competitive game against United without Havertz looking like he can bring much to the game other than a willingness to press the ball.
Arteta must ” bite the bullet” at this stage…play his best players in their best positions…Build some momentum which has been lacking thus far this season and once Arsenal starts firing again then he can think about tinkering once again.
We definitely wouldn’t have scored less, in any case.
Maybe, but Arteta hasn’t fully utilized Havertz’s strengths yet. Odegaard and Saka should’ve made more long crosses to Havertz’s head
I think the Arsenal player and fans shouldn’t be self sabotaging. There isn’t really nothing to worry about after 3 games, the season is a long one. Havertz is already signed and he is a good player on his day. Let’s be hopeful and positive he would turn out fine. 3 games played isn’t enough to judge a player or coach. Sometimes we fans are uneccesarily critical. ManCity didn’t win the league without a lose, the “invincibless” didn’t win the league without a draw, so no need for agitations. Win or lose against ManU isnt a determinant to winning Epl. Especially if the players has a good mentality of previous winners had
I bet Havertz’s detractors were the same ones who couldn’t see anything good in Xhaka/ Vieira and wanted to get rid of Arteta two seasons ago
Not related and you are just spouting rubbish.
Why is Nketian expected to score loads of goals. For the past two years the emphasis at Arsenal is for Saka and Martinellii to produce. If these two can’t then the team is basically stuffed. It’s our biggest flaw. Most of the league now’s it except some of our fans who acty believe Nketian has the same abilities as a Harry Kane?, a Rashford? an Adabadyor or a Balogan,?god forbid.
Yes but not because of the new players, because of the tactics.
Huh? The guy actually doesn’t know what he’s saying!
Nketiah has 2 goals in 2 starts, and won us the penalty against Palace. He also had a huge impact from the bench against Fulham scoring what should have been the winning goal.
I would argue that Nketiah has been our best player so far this season. The only other player that has consistently performed well in our opening 3 games is Rice, but I’d give it to Eddie considering he’s had less minutes on the pitch.
I am with you on this.
I must have been sleep walking through the first three games. I saw a pedestrian centre forward doing what pedestrian centre forwards do, which is huffing and puffing away scoring the odd goal but never there when needed. Not a champions League player let alone one to take us to a title.
But we’ve seen that from Eddie so many times now. He’ll have a purple-patch and score a few goals in a few games, some of which might look great, but then the goals will dry up until he loses his starting stop. Always the same, and at 23 or 24 years old he is way past being considered a”Kid”.
I do agree, however you cannot deny he’s had a great start this season?
Also I think it’s harsh to be overly critical of him, considering he’s only a squad player, and that’s he’s actually improved year on year.
People keep having a pop at him as if he’s a our main striker!
I’m more worried about the goals we’re conceding. We’ve made good chances and controlled games pretty well, but we’ve conceded very cheap goals – all three were very poor in different ways.
We could have scored more goals with a little more luck and better finishing at times, but we could also have had three clean sheets were it not for some real basic errors.
I do think playing partey at RB has contributed to this excessively, as it has created some positional confusion. I think arteta will persist with it in the hope the players will adjust and the errors will stop, but if they don’t, he’ll have no option except to change things again – many will hope that would mean taking havertz out of the team and moving partey into midfield, but it could easily mean taking partey out of the team entirely, which might bring additional unintended consequences, as rice is not as good on the turn, and not as well suited to the pivot role… Arteta has got to be careful how he handles it.
I think the main culprits of Arsenal’s wastefulness are three our last season’s top scorers – Martinelli,Saka and Odegaard. There were instances where Odegaard has shot straight at the keeper whereas Martinelli’s decision making in front of goal has not been good. These are things you can’t blame on the system;they need to be more clinical.
Arsenal do not have a disastrous start by any stretch of the imagination, my dissatisfaction has to do more with performance not so much the result.
The gaffer has made a series of mistakes in recent times that would suggest he has gone off the broil maybe it temporary, and here are the mistakes.
Playing Havertz in a deep lying midfield three with Rice and Odegaard against Man United in the MetLife arena, my suggestion that such a formation is a disaster waiting to happen is well documented.
Playing Partey at Right back, this is a world class player that has been cutting his teeth in a defensive midfield role from saltfish use to make house.
Forcing Havertz to start every game, when a gentle introduction would have been more like it.
Relegating Gabriel Magalhaes to the bench to accommodate others.
With all these drastic changes, though result in minimal improvement of ball position at the back, surely affected our scoring chances..
Intestine that a real player like ESR is being asked to “step up”, this season but isn’t that rather hard to do when you are behind Harvetz and Viera in the managers order of preference. His advisors should be telling him that Newcastle and Villa are the way forward.The only way Arteta will lean towards Smith Rowe is if we have a horrible run of three or four winless games, which is called panic stations in anybody else’s book.
The last time Arteta had such a major re-arrangement of the team they were poor fir 5 or 6 games, then BANG! It clicked and they were great. I expect something similar to happen in the near future. I still think Havertz will come good. After all, last sessin everyone had written-off Fabio Viera as a failure, but now suddenly he’s brilliant. Arsenal have complicated systems and that takes time to get the hang of it, especially with loads of new players just added, and others who are still very much learning & developing.
Sometimes I think Arteta was very lucky during the first half of last season. Like every season there is a team that surprises and Arsenal could have been one of the teams 2022/23 season. From January last season we were not convincing even during the games we were winning. We won a lot of games by lucky. We have carried on playing poorly into the new season. Issues that bother me below:
1. How does him and Edu spend 65m on Havertz when we needed a striker.
2. Rice is a good player but definitely not worth 110m we could have got a cheaper option.
3. The money spent on Havertz could have been used on Maddison and Ward Prowse who have out performed Odegaard for the two games this season.
4. He bought Timber a right footed player and played him as a right during the off season but changes to play him as a left back whilst we had Tierney and Kiwior.
5. Was buying and old horse in Jorginho better than keeping Lokonga. Definitely his arrival hasn’t improved the midfield.
6. Is he not concerned about the numerous mistakes by Zinchenko that has cost us points so much during the tail end of the season and the last games.
7. It seems he ships out players or doesn’t players to protect his favorites eg sending out Tierney so that Zinchenko doesn’t have competition.
8. Is he trying to frustrate Partey by playing him right back when he is one of the best in his position even better than the 100m Rice.
9. Does he think Havertz is better than ESR?
It’s too early to judge our new recruits. Give them a chance to shine
I wasn’t happy with the 65 million we spent on Kai but give him time. Hopefully he will produce thlie goods
Nobody is saying dont give him time. What people are saying is dont let his being in the team, affect our performances. Give him time to adjust but to deserve and perform, when he comes in. We cant afford to wait for something that may or may not happen, while he finds his feet, if he is going to do. He isn’t deserving of his place in the team.
It seems that Arteta really wanted to sell Gabriel in the transfer window and replace him with Garcia from Barcelona.
Garcia was sold to Barcelona by Man City (where undoubtedly Arteta fell in love with him). Now Barcelona want to move him on.
Arteta wanted to buy him from Barcelona to replace Gabriel, but Man City did not want another or their former players to end up with Arteta, so apparently City told Barcelona that if they did not sell Garcia to Gerona, then City would not loan Cancelo to Barcelona!!
So it seems that Arteta has upset Gabriel, and the team, for nothing.
Gerona, it seems is also in the Man City stable of clubs.
Still, never mind, lets all drink the Cool-Aid and believe in the process.