We had ourselves some Arsenal goalscorers again last night and, just as I’d hoped for, Big Vik was once again in amongst it. It was another proper [tap-in poachers goal](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/1wyh1kn/romania_01_sweden_viktor_gyokeres_13/), but at this point, I don’t think we want to look any kind of gift horse in the mouth, because he’s going to be our guy when he walks back into London Colney with Havertz out, so I’d much prefer he walks in like this than anything else:
Getting goals will definitely help that. We saw when he arrived in that cab and read aloud the message from Martin about how if thehere’s anything he could do to help him settle in, he just needed to let him know. His response was something like “assists, I just need assists”. This is a guy who essentially models his game entirely on end product. He isn’t skillful with the ball at his feet, he can’t beat a man, we’ve seen he hasn’t got the pace to get away from Premier League defenders; he’s not much of an aerial threat. But what he can do is shoot. Hard. And his goals have shown us that he _**can**_ find space inside the box, so the challenge is how we do that in a league in which a lot of teams just sit deep against us. But you can’t argue with his Sweden form right now. And that can’t just be fluke, either, because he’s got 25 goals in 41 appearances, he’s scored six goals in his last seven games for Sweden. I get that there’s probably a bit more space for him in international games, and we all know how Martinelli said as much in Champions League football too, but there must be a way we can find the best out of the Swede in an Arsenal shirt?
I do think confidence will play a little part. In the Ipswich cup game he looked like he was hiding in plain sight a bit; his movement just wasn’t there, he had a couple of occasions to step in front of his marker when balls came into the box, yet he declined to do so and had what we all now know was a VERY underwhelming performance. But his recent international form will have him returning back to London with a bit more of a swagger in his step. That might give him an extra 5 – 10% edge, but he’s now going to have to deliver on Saturday in an Arsenal shirt.
The other goalscorer was of course Riccy Cala, who bagged one for Italy against Turkey, and he did it with just 34 minutes of football. That, for me, is great on both counts. He too will come back with a swagger to London, but hopefully in one piece, having not started the game but finishing it. It was his first goal too, [from a nice set piece](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/1wyitdg/italy_21_turkiye_riccardo_calafiori_64/), so that’ll sate those of us who are getting a little sad that we haven’t been able to sing n’set piece again ole ole’ in relation to an Arsenal player.
That is something I would like to see us get back to, you know, because it is annoying me with the lazy media narrative that we only won the title last season because of our set pieces. I’m sure you’ve heard it too; a rival fan, or ignorant pundit just carelessly chucks out a comment about how the rules on hugging and grappling have now changed, which is why Arsenal haven’t been scoring from set pieces. Firstly, anyone who looks at the way we set up on corners and free kicks will know that we don’t have that most of the time. You know what I’m talking about: Our players bunch at the back post, then just before the ball is kicked they make their moves and run into their positions. Grappling doesn’t suit us; it suits our opponents who want us to be static. If you want to look at grappling, go watch that United v Everton game from last season, in which the two teams were essentially engaging in judo matches all around both penalty boxes. But you’ll never hear about that, because neither side was fighting for the title.
The reality is, I think, that teams are a little more familiar with our patterns on set pieces so far this season, but I also just feel like we’ve been unlucky on a couple of occasions. We have players who are good in the air, we _**will**_ start scoring set pieces again, but there was probably an element of us running hot on set pieces for a short period of time last season, then having the pendulum swing the other way a tiny bit this season. And this idea that we get a ton more than everyone else is folly too; last season we were top with 25 non-penalty set-piece goals, but we also saw Man United get 22, so there’s hardly a massive gap.
So whilst we do have that as part of our, ahem, ‘arsenal’, I think the laziness to just dismiss us this season on those goals because of a slight rule change (which probably goes away around this time anyway) is half-arsed analysis if you ask me.
But what do you think?