Breaking down Arsenal’s goalscoring struggles – and Mikel Arteta’s solution | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta is aware that Arsenal need more “explosiveness” in attack, and his staff are looking to rectify this in the January transfer window, although much of this would have been clear to see before Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup defeat to Newcastle United. Alexander Isak, who has so frequently been linked with the London club, was the clear difference. It was hard not to think that Arsenal would be halfway to the Carabao Cup final and probably much closer to Liverpool in the league if they had the Swede in the team or anyone like him.

There are admittedly few like Isak right now but that emphasises the point. Arsenal could just do with something.

This was another match, to go with an entire season, where they felt the consequences of a thin attack. It’s also hard not to link that, and a lot of the discussion around it, to some of the angst that afflicted the team in missing so many chances against the Magpies.

Some perspective is required, nevertheless.

Arsenal’s performance was, on the whole, quite good. It wasn’t the problem of many recent games, where the xG has been low and they have barely created any chances. The display was instead much closer to the best Arsenal of the last three seasons, where they attack the opposition from all angles. For all the doom-mongering and criticism, the project is on course.

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Under manager Mikel Arteta, Arsenal too often bring games down to basics (AFP/Getty)

They’re still second in the table and within touching distance of the top, with the Champions League looking good. Arteta has made Arsenal one of the best teams in Europe again. It’s also true that this season has been afflicted by a series of different issues, from injuries to other absences, even if some are self-inflicted.

Those problems have nevertheless exposed some remaining issues with the finishing, and the final steps in this team-building.

From going so close to Manchester City for the last two seasons, it is like Arteta became fixated on making up that agonising but tantalising gap to the champions in different ways. Hence a greater focus on a defensive muscularity, like Riccardo Calafiori and Mikel Merino, that has proved valuable in their meetings with Pep Guardiola’s side. Arteta’s idea is to give his team multiple possible tactical configurations in midfield, which makes them very difficult to figure out.

In a world of PSR (profit and sustainability rules), though, a focus in this area has come at the cost of Arsenal’s unpredictability in attack. So much of their money has recently been spent on defensive players rather than the forward line.

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Kai Havertz and William Saliba of Arsenal look on after defeat to Newcastle United (Getty)

Even since putting the first phase of his team together, by the summer of 2022, there’s been £243.8m spent on more defensive outfield positions and just £86m on attack. Those figures are skewed by Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli’s development but the imbalance has still been seen on the pitch.

When Arsenal miss their first-choice attackers for any extended amount of time, they tend to resort to a minimalism that is obviously conditioned by the profile of the squad. The more defensive-tilted players they have, the more they defend. That 1-1 draw with Brighton was a case in point. Arsenal went 1-0 ahead and quickly tried to keep it, instead of truly building on it in the way they do at their best.

Rather than “becoming Jose Mourinho”, in the way Arteta has occasionally been criticised for, it is more that Arsenal can drastically shift their tactical approach. That would usually be a strength, especially in the Champions League. It has instead evolved into a weakness in a modern Premier League where maxing wins for 90 points is a minimum requirement, but Arsenal too often bring games down to basics.

Some at other clubs have pointed to their low xG average and that is a key point, but in a different way than intended. As the Brighton and Newcastle games showed, Arsenal can wildly vary from match to match. They are still producing those all-action attacking performances but not consistently enough, in part due to the lack of options.

This is where the numbers are reflected in the names. In the five years since Arteta started building this team, their only attacking signings have been Willian, Marquinhos, Fabio Vieira, Gabriel Jesus, Leandro Trossard, Kai Havertz and Raheem Sterling. It isn't imposing. That group, with some already gone, has produced just 13 goals in the Premier League this season. That is five fewer than Mohamed Salah’s 18 on his own.

That is the difference. Martin Odegaard could of course be viewed as a forward signing given his centrality to Arsenal’s attack, but he only has one goal this season. The Norwegian’s ankle injury was the first of the campaign’s problems, and it is like he hasn’t yet fully recovered his verve.

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Martin Odegaard has yet to recapture the form he showed before his ankle injury in August (Getty)

That naturally means Arsenal don’t move with the same smoothness, either, and it has affected the mood of matches. Those within the club talk of how “goals change games”, like the defeat to Newcastle and how Isak’s first strike followed Martinelli’s miss, but that illustrates another issue. It’s like there have been too many matches when Arsenal have been dependent on getting the first goal, in a way they weren’t over the previous two seasons.

Missed chances then create even more anxiety in that context.

Again, much of this is circumstantial, and just how this campaign has gone. There has been bad luck. It is still a problem to solve, and one that is akin to a vintage example from Premier League history, while relevant to this Sunday’s FA Cup opponents.

Back in the very first Premier League campaign, in 1992-92, Manchester United were reeling from the previous season’s near-miss and suffered a sudden regression. They stopped scoring. United were lacking a certain dimension in attack, to the point Sir Alex Ferguson spoke of requiring a “can-opener”. Eric Cantona suddenly offered the solution out of almost nowhere. The rest is history, but the future is different.

Such signings aren't quite possible in the modern game of forensic scouting, but there may be some parallels. In the same way that Arteta has become so specific about defensive and midfield signings he wants, to the point targets emerge as obvious fits, he has quite defined ideals on attackers. The Basque wants forwards he can shape and develop, and preferably those with a certain physicality. That’s why there is now interest in Evan Ferguson and – to a much stronger degree – Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko.

There is an argument that Arteta’s specific requirements for this position have led to a certain prevarication in signings, one that isn’t completely unlike David Moyes in the market. Arsenal haven’t acted as decisively with forwards as they have in other areas. There is a long list of names they have been linked with where nothing has happened, from Dusan Vlahovic in the early seasons to Isak himself.

But that’s where the Cantona parallel perhaps becomes more pronounced. Arsenal may need something a bit different, outside the usual parameters, that allows that crucial final touch.