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Halfway through the Premier League season and Arsenal’s centre forward position has given them just eight goals, posing the question: do Arsenal have a striker problem?
Despite the low return, the Gunners sit top and have the second most goals scored in the league with 37, only behind Manchester City.
Based on goals scored by players when playing at striker, Arsenal’s eight goals out of 37 in total makes up just 22% of their overall output. In the top half of the table, only Chelsea, Manchester United and Everton have a worse return.
In recent games, Viktor Gyökeres has struggled to get shots away and only scoring a single penalty over his last six games. His lack of movement in and around the box is limiting the chances he’s receiving, but his work stretching opposition defences has generated lots of space for his attacking teammates.
The obvious solution is a fully fit Kai Havertz who can alternate minutes with Gyökeres, keeping both players fresh while they share the load up top.
Mikel Merino has functioned well as a hold-up target man in his minutes at centre forward this season, while Gabriel Jesus is returning from injury to offer a more unpredictable option up top, having scored against Aston Villa on Tuesday night. In the absence of Havertz, both need more minutes to take Gyökeres out of the firing line.
The reality is Arsenal’s current 22 per cent of goals coming from the striker position is perfectly fine to win the Premier League title.
Over the past five years, Liverpool in 24/25 and Manchester City in 20/21 had 19 and 24 per cent of their goals come from the striker position respectively, while in 21/22, City had just eight per cent of goals from their centre forward position, operating largely without a recognised striker.
The key is that in those seasons, those teams either had a winger or attacking midfielder hit big goalscoring numbers, or several players chip in with double figures or close to.
So, while Gyökeres and the other strikers need to up their output, the midfielders and wingers need to chip in more too to up the goalscoring pace and put Arsenal on track for the title.