Arsenal’s striker issues: 3 potential targets

One of the worst kept secrets over the last few seasons at Arsenal is their lack of a natural number nine. Goals haven’t exactly been an issue during the last two and a half seasons as title challengers, it is clear however that Arsenal lack a number nine who is going to get them somewhere around the 25-30 goals a season that can be the crucial difference between winning the title and finishing in second place. 

Arsenal do have players who can score goals, as has been proven over the last two seasons. Saka has 35 goals over the last two seasons and has been a key part to Arsenal’s pursuit of the Premier League title. But with him out injured for some time, the goals and creativity in the side has dried up. Yes, there are players like Ødegaard, who is a brilliant footballer and creates a lot of chances and contributes his fair share of goals, but you can’t win a title if your main source of goals is coming from a central midfielder. Kai Havertz is the man who is favoured to play up front for Arsenal and has managed to get himself 8 goals in the league this season from 19 starts, but it’s obvious when you watch him play that he isn’t a number 9, he isn’t going to be the man to get 25-30 goals in a league campaign year in year out. 

A natural goal scorer is something that fits the culture of Arsenal in the Premier League era of English football. Wright, Van Persie, Thierry Henry. Three giant names of the Premier League era, all know for their natural ability to put the ball in the back of the net. You can even look beyond these three and find natural goal scorers in pretty much every Arsenal squad of the Premier League era. Adebayor, Sanchez, Anelka, Aubameyang, all players who have scored goals while leading Arsenal’s front line.  

Yes, there are names being linked with the Gunners this transfer window and the names will no doubt be named again come the summer. Alexander Isak and Patrik Schick are two names that continue to be linked to the club and for good reason, they’re both very prolific goal scorers. However, the likelihood of either of them being allowed to leave their current clubs is very minimal in January, and If they were to, they would cost Arsenal an absurd amount of money. 

Here are our three top striker who Arsenal should be looking to invest in this January transfer window:

Mateo Retegui (Atalanta)

Age: 25

Appearances: 19 (15 starts)

Goals: 14

Assists: 3

Market Value: €35,000,000

Retegui joined Atalanta from Genoa in the summer for €28,000,000 having impressed last season where he scored 7 goals in 29 games as newly promoted Genoa finished in an impressive 11th place in Serie A. Since joining in the summer, he has bagged himself 14 goals alongside 3 assists in just 19 games.

His attacking stats back his numbers up. Per 90 minutes this season he is scoring 1.19 goals and assisting 0.25. He averages 4.5 shots per game, with an average of 1.78 on target, to go along with having 7.9 touches in the opposition box and creating 1.44 chances per game. It clear that, when in the opposition area, he’s a real handful, in fact all but one of his goals this season have come from inside the box, and at 6-foot 1 inch tall, he’s won 26 aerial duels this season, which just threat to his threat to defenders. Where Retegui fails is in his general build up play. Although he has contributed 3 assists this season, his passing stats don’t read as well as you would expect. Per 90 minutes of football, he only averages 16.56 successful passes per game to go along with a 78.3% pass accuracy. He also only averages 0.25 successful dribbles with a dribble success rate of 25%. Given the way Arsenal like to play, this could mean that Retegui might struggle to adapt to Arteta’s style of play, however, his goal record is something that you can’t look past. 

Jonathan Burkardt (Mainz 05)

Age: 24

Appearances: 16 (16 starts)

Goals: 12

Assists: 1

Market Value: €25,000,000

Burkardt came through the academy at Mainz 05 and after being a first team regular over the last 5 years, he has found his goal scoring form. This season, per 90 minutes of football, he is averaging 0.96 goals and is drastically outperforming his expected goals for the season as a while which is currently 8.72. What’s even more impressive is that he is only averaging 2.71 shots per game, 1.28 on target, and just 4.86 touches in the opposition box, showing just how clinical he is in front of goal. Something that also may be of interest to Arsenal is his ability to play as a 10, as well as a 9, something that Arteta seems to like from his strikers.  However, much like Retegui, his build up play leaves a lot to be desired. He only averages 15.62 successful passes per game, with a pass accuracy of 74.8%. He averages 0.48 successful dribbles per game and has a dribble success rate of just 42.9%. 

Hugo Ekitiké (Eintracht Frankfurt) 

Age: 22

Appearances: 17 (16 starts)

Goals: 9

Assists: 3

Market Value: €40,000,000

Ekitiké is the one that, of the three, is the most exciting prospect. After spending last season on loan at Frankfurt from PSG, the club bought Ekitiké on a permeant deal in the summer for €16,500,000, and it’s proved to be a bargain for the German side. With 9 goals and 3 assists from 17 games, he’s proven to be a key asset to the club. On paper, some of his numbers don’t read as impressive when compared to Burkardt and Retegui. Per 90 minutes, he’s scoring 0.64 goals, and is hitting his expect goals for the season, which currently sits at 9.66. He’s averaging 3.73 shots per game, with 1.43 of those on target. But he’s averaging 6.81 touches in the box, so it’s clear to see that there is a player in there capable of scoring goals at a frequent level, if he can just start getting more shots away. What may be more of interest to Arsenal is the players creativity. He averages 0.21 assists per game to go along with 17.56 successful passes per game alongside a passing success rate of 78.5%. He’s creating an average of 1.79 chances per game and has by far and away the most impressive successful dribbles stat of the players mentioned here, with 2.29 per game. He’s also a player that like to defend from the front and has an impressive average of 3.3 recoveries per game this season. 

It’s all well and good giving you the numbers that I have for each player above, so it only seems fair to give you something to compare them to, and to do that I have looked at the numbers for a player I have already mentioned above. The man that Arsenal have trusted to be their main striker since bringing him in from Chelsea for roughly £65,000,000.

Kai Havertz

Age: 25

Appearances: 19 (19 starts)

Goals: 8

Assists: 2

Market Value: £75,000,000

Since his arrival from Chelsea last summer, Havertz has been one of the main players that Arteta puts his faith in. He has played 56 times for Arsenal in the Premier League and has scored 21 goals and provided 9 assists, which doesn’t sound too bad when you read it like that. This season, he is averaging, per 90 minutes, 0.43 goals and 0.11 assists. He currently averages 2.44 shots per game, with only 0.97 of those being on target. He also only averages 5.31 touches in the opposition box. His dribbling stats don’t look too impressive either, with him only averaging 0.43 succesfuldribbles per game with a dribble success rate of 26.7%.  The stats that look favourably upon Havertz are very much all related to his build up play. He has an average of 19.6 successful passes per game with a passing accuracy of 80.3%. He’s also proved to be a good target man, winning 56 ariel duels this season with a success rate of 45.5%. I think it’s fair to say that when you look at the numbers for the three players above and compare them to Havertz that any of these players would be a welcome addition to the club, and this isn’t to say Havertz is a bad player and Arsenal should look to move him in, it’s just that he’s clearly played out of position and would benefit from dropping a lot deeper from where he is playing now. 

All three players mentioned above are very obtainable players for a club like Arsenal, though I don’t expect them to sign any of these players, nor do I think that this will be the year that Arsenal take that next step and win the Premier League title. And even though Arteta has hinted that Arsenal may sign a striker in this window, I doubt they’ll will. Arsenal will no doubt stick with the formula they have now, and no doubt will finish the season as a completive runner up. And I have no doubt that come the end of the season we will ask the question, “could they gave won the league with a proper number 9 leading the line up top?”.