It has proven to be a very mixed season for Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, as we enjoyed a good run to the Champions League semi finals before ultimately losing out to Paris Saint-Germain in the two legged affair, but domestically we now need to take victory over Newcastle United to ensure that we finish the 2024/25 campaign in second spot and as Premier League runners up once more.
Whilst we have been pretty steady across the course of the campaign, our league form has been seriously hampered by the number of points we have dropped with the 14 draws that we have picked up from our 36 games so far, so going out and ending the season with another two wins and six points from six would be the perfect way to enter the summer.
Former England left back Stuart Pearce was a recent guest on the Seaman Says podcast, sponsored by Betway, and as you would expect David, and his 63 year old international colleague, covered a number of football and Emirates Stadium based topics with the current campaign now almost at a close.
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Sadly for Gunners fans, one topic in particular, is all too familiar as it has been the subject of debate for a number of seasons now and it concerns of lack of a true died in the wool striker. You only need to look at the number of draws we have picked up to know why it is back on the agenda, and our interest in a true man at the top featured heavily on the speculation rumour mill back in the January transfer window with a believed offer for Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins seemingly backing up Arteta’s own comments on target priority.
Ultimately, nothing came to pass and although Pearce was adamant that Arsenal had not gone backwards this year and that improvements could easily be found, one glaring error remained the striker situation but he did have some sympathy for the position the club find themselves in.
“I’ve found it many times before, people think it’s easy to go out and buy a centre-forward that can get you 25 goals a year. It’s the hardest thing in the world to do. We talk about Arsenal bringing players in and recruitment, they’ve got the best two youngsters in European football in Saka and Lewis-Skelly that they bought through the academy system. So that’s a real plus for Arsenal.”
Pearce was also quick to add that from the perspective of the fans though, they see in form strikers on a weekly basis at other top flight clubs, and then for example, this season.
“Then the trouble is the likes of Chris Wood turns up, all of a sudden gets 20 goals a season – “well why didn’t we sign Chris Wood then?” It’s just ridiculous, but that’s football.”
If anything anything Arsenal’s problem is our more distinct style of play. The likes of Chris Wood would thrive in the box on the chances we could create for him, the question is outside of the box and more fluid movement to enable those chances to be created.
Wood is the wrong example here but it does not mean that there are not options, we can all name them, question is will we pay for them?
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