If Arsenal don’t lace their shooting boots up quickly, their best chance at Premier League title in a generation will pass them by.
Last night, Mikel Arteta’s side managed 77 touches in the West Ham box, mustered 30 shots and enjoyed more than 70 per cent possession over 90 minutes…and they had absolutely nothing to show for it.
At the other end of the pitch, West Ham managed three shots on target and scored two of them.
Just as it did under Arsene Wenger, this sort of profligacy is starting to cost them dearly and, if they don’t get a grip on it soon, they will see another season slip away with the squad wondering ‘what if?’.
In some sense, relying on your attacking quartet/quintet to share the burden of goals is a smart, sensible approach. You should never rely on any one player for more than half of your goals, simply because of the hole this leaves when said player is injured or unavailable.
However, the disadvantage to lacking a killer in front of goal is precisely what we saw last night and, indeed, what we have seen for much of this season – big chances missed. And it’s not only the chances you would expect a top side to score that are going missing, it’s the half chances that the very best put away too.
Put simply, our lack of an out-and-out goalscorer is killing us.
We tried everything against West Ham – shots from range, cut-backs, set pieces, deep crosses, balls over the top but nothing worked. As many have noted, we could still be playing now and the ball simply would not have gone in.
On another day, we would have scored four with ease but there are no points for ‘another day’ and there is no consolation for misfortune. We need to put the ball in the net and we need to be ruthless about it because, as recent matches have shown, when you pass up chance-after-chance, you leave yourself open to poor refereeing or sheer dumb luck.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the ball was over the line when Jarred Bowen pulled it back for Tomas Soucek to score West Ham’s opener last night but we can’t rely on VAR or match officials to get these decisions right because they can so readily hide behind their ignorance and ineptitude. We have to take them out of the game as a factor.
Gabriel Jesus is an excellent player who is top tier in almost every aspect of play – except in finishing. By his own admission, goalscoring is not his strong point and, for all that he gives us as an attacking unit, we miss the type of goal-scoring alacrity the likes of Erling Haaland provide. When Jesus passes up big chances, the burden on everybody else ramps up.
Arteta hasn’t been shy in the past about talking about transfer windows and maximising the opportunities they present but, on this occasion, he has been much more reticent. That speaks volumes. It feels to me like he won’t have any room for manoeuvre in January and he’s going to have to wait until the summer to get the sort of reinforcements up front that he needs.
Unless something hugely unexpected materialises, we face going into the second half of the season with what we have now. And while that line-up has powered us comfortably into title contention, I honestly don’t think it will be enough to bring home the league title this season – not without a major reversal in fortune or massive over-performance in front of goal.
While that’s not impossible, it’s extremely unlikely and we shouldn’t bank on it.
I fear instead the West Ham game was a turning point in our season – a moment where things could start to get away from us. Manchester City have underwhelmed in a big way in this campaign and yet, despite that, they find themselves just three points behind us with a game in hand. At this point last year, we were 10 points better off and City still ate up the ground and, ultimately, cruised to the title. With Liverpool offering a genuine threat this time around to, it’s clear things are going to be that much harder. We have to improve, and improve quickly, or this could be over before we’re able to react.
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