It could have been more. It should have been more. But as Mikel Arteta said, football is not always perfect.
Against Lens, we had 14 shots, 8 on target. We scored 6 goals from an xG of 2.56. We were clinical. The xG against Wolves was 3.30, we had 19 shots with 6 on target. We scored just twice.
Lens was pretty much a perfect attacking performance. Against Wolves, some brilliant attacking play was let down by poor finishing.
Leandro Trossard twice went clean through, and twice tamely hit it at the keeper. Eddie Nketiah also missed a one on one, striking the post. Gabriel Martinelli hit the post with a fantastic curling shot and Gabriel Jesus should have knocked one in from a similar position as to what Kai Havertz scored in against Brentford.
Some will say that the Wolves performance shows we need a more clinical striker, pointing our the basic stat of zero goals and zero assists for Gabriel Jesus. But the Brazilian hasd a superb game.
He held the ball up well, creating space for Bukayo Saka’s first goal, and then played a sublime pass whidh enabled Olexsandr Zinchenko to assist for Martin Odegaard’s second. And this is why sometimes you need to ignore goal and assist stats.
Jesus was key in both goals, yet comes away from the game without adding to his G/A for the season and has now scored just 1 in 9 Premier League games this season.
Were we to sign a more clinical striker, the net result could be that we worse in attack.
Jesus comes deep, goes wide. His movement, vision and play brings in Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard, who then profit.
We might not have had a 30-goal a season striker last season, but instead we have an attacking unit that scored more goals than any other Premier League season in our history.
That front 4 of Jesus, Saka, Martinelli and Odegaard scored 55 Premier League goals between them last year. Erling Haaland, Phil Foden, Kevin de Bruyne and Jack Grealish scored 59 combined.
City sacrifice goals elsewhere on the pitch to get the best out of Haaland. With 36 goals last year and the treble, it is easy to make the argument that it is the correct tactic for them. But there is only one Haaland in world football.
Across Europe’s top leagues last season, only 2 men scored 30 or more league goals – Halaand (36) and Harry Kane (30).
Kylian Mbappe (29), Alexandre Lacazette (27) and Victor Osimhen (26) were the only other men to score 25. They were followed by Jonathan David (24), Robert Lewandowski (23), Lautaro Martinez (21), Lois Openda (21) and Folarin Balogun (21) as the players to have scored over 20.
Of the 10 players to score more than 20-goals in 2022/23, 5 played in France. And one was Lacazette which highlights just how poor Ligue 1 is.
This highlights how few proven 20+ goal scorers there are across Europe, and other than Victor Osimhen, I am not sure any of the others would be worthwhile sacrificing Jesus’s all round play for.
This blog has been heavy about Jesus, but his wastefullness was certainly not the reason why we only scored 2 on Saturday. Trossard and Nketiah were the most guilty.
Trossard’s first came from a brilliant touch from himself. By the time the ball then dropped the keeper was right on him. Whilst clean through, it was not a clear chance.
His second he should have burried but, under pressure from the defender, he fluffed his lines. Like Jesus, Trossard is not a natural goal scorer (hence why he is a winger/ attacking midfielder), so you can make a case for his defence. Nketiah on the other hand is different.
Eddie’s key selling point is that he is a goal scorer, a finisher. He is not one that runs the channels, brings others into play or creates his own chances. He relies on passes like Martin Odegaard’s on Saturday to put him clean through and finish.
If scoring goals is your USP, then missing a one on one under zero pressure is inexcusable.
A few times this season when coming on, Nketiah has not really shown a willingness to close down. He comes on in the 70th minute and does not add energy to the front line. He looks like he has been playing for the previous 70 minutes, not sitting on the bench. And this lack of energy is as much as a concern as his finishing.
I think it is becomming clear and obvious that if we do not go for Osimhen, we need to focus on getting someone in that is in and around Jesus’s level, and an improvement on Nketiah. And for those currently saying “we should never have left Folarin Balogun leave”, the issue was he did not want to be second choice to Jesus. He wanted guaranteed starts. And that is the headache Arteta, Edu and the team face trying to get an upgrade on Eddie.
The issue has always been how many players who are better than Nketiah would move to Arsenal to sit on our bench? You certainly could not see an Ollie Watkins leaving Aston Villa for Arsenal. Likewise Lautaro Martínez would not leave Inter Milan without the assurances that he would be our first choice.
Ivan Toney looks a realistic target who, at nearly 28, might see joining The Arsenal to sit on our bench as his last chance to play for a team fighting at the top of the league, playing in the Champions League. Beyond that, any other name I look at feels like it would remain a risk. Nketiah would get 20+ goals in France, so those top scorers in Ligue 1 would not be a suitable option.
The issue at 2-nil and when you do not put your chances away is that you leave the door open to drop points if your opponents get one back. Wolves did that on Saturday and we ended up holding on for a win rather than cantering to victory like we did against Lens.
But we got the 3-points which took us 4 clear (having played a game more), and that is what was important.
We are beginning to pur in attack now. 6 against Lens and should have had 6 against Wolves. And Jesus returning to fitness is key to that. The goals will come, I am sure of that. But a bit like against Lens, it will be a variety of goal scorers rather than one blond haired blue eyed forward getting a hat trick every other game.
Eddie is an issue we need to resolve, either in January or in the summer. It is getting to the point where it is worthwhile considering taking a risk on someone playing at a lower level. An Akor Adams or Elye Wahi in France, or Santiago Giménez from Feyenoord.
Arteta and Edu are forward thinking enough to know where we can improve. They showed that with the signing of Declan Rice despite us already having Thomas Partey. They will know better competition for Jesus could be the key to take us up yet another level. But the question still remains as to who that Eddie replacement will be.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 