If the busy festive schedule of fixtures has shown us anything, it’s that a reset and refresh is needed at Arsenal and it’s clear transfer business will be an important part of that.
I should start by saying that this current squad didn’t become rubbish overnight. We haven’t got 20-odd players who suddenly forgot how to play football or work in the kind of way the manager requires. This isn’t the darkest days of 2019/20 come again.
But it is clear that some serious thought is needed. The way Mikel Arteta likes his side to play has served us extremely well in the last 18 months but it is far from bulletproof. Unlike last season, teams now have plans for us and many have found ways of making life extremely difficult – Fulham a case in point.
In order to combat that, Arteta and his staff will need to evolve their ideas just a little more. I’m not talking about a complete stylistic overhaul, more a tweaking around the edges to make sure we don’t fall into the sort of torpor which made us so staggeringly ineffective at Craven Cottage.
Part of that puzzle will inevitably be tactical but, at least in my book, attention will need to be turned to the transfer market too.
However, after a few windows of relatively large transfer outlay, it’s obvious that we won’t be able to spend significant sums without generating sizeable revenues ourselves. Hence, as many outgoings as incomings may well be required.
By accounts, the managers priority position remains the midfield and, to an extent, I understand. Declan Rice is enormously over-worked and Thomas Partey simply isn’t reliable from a fitness perspective – and he never has been.
Emile Smith Rowe is similarly fragile, Jorginho seems to operate in a quite narrow set of circumstances and Mohammed Elneny is not the player you want in the heart of your midfield if you have ambitions higher than a top six position.
To that end, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see the manager and Edu make a concerted effort to add an extra body in midfield.
However, for me, the problem lies in more advanced positions and, perhaps more specifically, at number nine.
Gabriel Jesus is an outstanding footballer but he is not a natural finisher. Eddie Nketiah is full of good intent and endeavour but he is not, and never will be, an elite goalscorer and match-winner. That’s not to throw shade on either player, it’s just a recognition of the reality.
There have been countless matches this season in which our finishing has cost us, or very nearly cost us, and that is because there is something missing up top.
I realise the likes of Erling Haaland aren’t 10-a-penny and reliable goalscorers are typically exorbitantly expensive but the club needs to do something to address the real shortcomings we face in that position. We need someone who can put the ball into the back of the net reliably. It’s not even necessarily about half-chances, it’s about putting away those two or three chances a game that currently going wide, over, or simply no-way near.
Quite who that player is remains an open question.
Ivan Toney is the name on everybody’s lips but ready-made talent, and an Englishman at that, means only big money will do. It’s by no means clear that Arsenal can do that now, with FFP restrictions as they are.
That may necessitate some outgoing business and there are several players who might generate good money. We may dislike it as fans, we may _really_ dislike it, but it’s possibly the only way to bring in the sort of quality the squad is crying out for.
And make no mistake, it is crying out for it. Last season, we relied on the combined goals of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard to carry us up the league table. This season, however, all three have struggled with hitting the same ruthless heights and the gulf in points achieved and goals scored this time around speaks to itself.
If we’re to reignite any sort of serious challenge for the Premier League title, we must act decisively.
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