Bruno Guimaraes has become the man Mikel Arteta turns to when an Arsenal game needs changing, and he is starting to settle those games himself.
Against Sunderland, the Brazilian came on at half-time and scored the winner. Against Leeds last weekend, he came on just after the hour and had found the net within minutes, injecting the intent and urgency Arsenal had been missing and freeing Declan Rice to push further up the pitch.
Twice he has come on and won the game for Arsenal, in two difficult games where they could have easily dropped points on another day. He’s only played 151 minutes of Premier League football so far this campaign, meaning he is returning a goal roughly every 75 minutes he has been on the pitch.
And that might not be a fluke. Arteta called Guimaraes ‘hungry’ after signing him this summer, and wants him to have an impact in the final third. On Tuesday night against Lille, he had five shots, more than any other player.
Bruno Guimaraes can bring more goals to Arsenal
Guimaraes played the full 90 minutes for the first time in an Arsenal shirt, partnering Rice in what many believe is the strongest midfield pairing available to Arteta. The Brazilian also finished the night with more touches than anybody else on the pitch, which tells you how central he was to everything the Gunners did.
But his shot tallies suggest the goals aren’t just landing at his feet. He is going looking for them. Of course, this isn’t an entirely new skill for Bruno Guimaraes. No Premier League midfielder scored more goals than Guimaraes last season, when he hit nine for Newcastle. Arsenal paid £75million for him in the summer and did so knowing exactly what they were getting.
What appears to be changing is how regularly he finds himself in a position to add goals. Arsenal are building through quick combinations around the edge of the box rather than leaning on set-pieces. As Sam Dean of The Telegraph pointed out, they have scored five goals this season following moves of at least 10 passes — 36% of their total, compared to 10% across the whole of last campaign.
Those patterns drag midfielders into the penalty area, and Bruno is clearly reading the invitation. His Leeds goal came at the end of exactly that sort of sequence, finishing off a rapid exchange involving Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Rice.
The conversion rate will settle at some point, of course. But a midfielder this hungry for goals, in a side creating plenty of chances, looks like a player who could beat last season’s tally of nine.