How do Arsenal improve their attack now?

Regardless of context or explanation, if in May I had offered you the following Arsenal transfer business in attack:

Out: Martinelli, Trossard, Jesus, Nwaneri (loan)
In: Tzolis

I don’t think many of us would have shaken hands on that, certainly not in respect of the ‘in’ column. (With no disrespect intended to Christos Tzolis, the issue is not his inclusion in the ‘in’ column, just that he is the sole inclusion). However, for better or worse, that is what has happened.

The failure to lock in the Morgan Rogers transfer before Chelsea got involved and the player himself was left questioning Arsenal’s commitment to his signing is the wrinkle in the market that requires review and scrutiny. But that is not what I am going to do in this article because, frankly, it’s saturated content by now.

The question now becomes how do Arsenal improve their attack from here? This piece is necessarily hypothetical and not intended to suggest that all these best case scenarios will come to fruition. It could be that none of them do! So please don’t view this as a veneration or justification but a focus on the areas Arsenal need to focus on to squeeze the pips in the final third.

BETTER FITNESS FOR THE MAIN MEN

While it is true that Arsenal only scored 71 Premier League goals last season, it is also true that they spent large portions without a minimum of one of Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz. This robbed Arsenal of both chemistry and quality. Let’s illustrate with some light touch, slightly unscientific data.

Correlation doesn’t always equal causation, but, you know what, sometimes it does too. The less these three play the fewer goals Arsenal score and the fewer chances they create. This trio, as well as being Arsenal’s best attackers, have also formed the core of the team for a little while now. They have a lot of individual quality but they also have a good blend of qualities.

I think Havertz is such an important pillar as a striker too. I don’t think I have ever seen a striker before who could equally have played for Pep Guardiola’s Barca and the 1980s Wimbledon Crazy Gang. The other issue the respective absences of these players gave Arsenal last season is that guys who were really supposed to be squad players or back ups, came into sharper focus as starters.

Noni Madueke is not as good as Saka. Viktor Gyokeres is not as good as Kai Havertz. Eberechi Eze is not as clearly behind Odegaard as the aforementioned two but he is the inverse profile to Odegaard. That is not to say any of these players are bad players. They are not. (I promise). But they are not quite as good as the main guys and into that bargain, they had not played together for very long. I also think we will regard them a lot more generously if they play support roles, which is not what any of them were asked to do last season.

Better fitness for Odegaard, Saka and Havertz cannot be taken for granted. It is a risk Arsenal have to carry at least until January. But the quality and chemistry uptick their availability would give the team would improve the attack on what we saw last season. Madueke, Eze and Gyokeres have all had a season to integrate now too and, hopefully, will be stronger for that experience.

EZE ON THE WING

The departures of Martinelli and Trossard and the failure to add another option on the left-wing means that we ought to see plenty of Eberechi Eze in that position this season. Especially since Christos Tzolis will have to undergo a learning curve in his acclimatisation to the Premier League.

In terms of squad balance, I think that works a little better. I don’t really like Eze more centrally, I don’t think he is quite involved enough to play there, though having a more progressive passer in midfield like Bruno Guimaraes could change that. I prefer Mikel Merino (more on whom anon) as an alternative in that advanced midfield role.

In a world where Arsenal had not signed Eze last summer but recruited him this summer as a Martinelli / Trossard replacement, I think most fans would have been very happy with that outcome. Of course it is natural for fans to be cautious about this move given Arteta played him on the left wing so seldom last season and seemed to give up on the idea entirely for around four months after the defeat at Villa Park.

Arteta did start Eze on the left for the crunch game away at Manchester City in April and he sounded a conciliatory note after Monday night’s win at Villa Park. ‘I had to trust him, especially when they make those rotations on the right side…I think he learned his lesson because every time something was happening, he was at it and he helped the team in a great way.’

In an interview with Spanish outlet Universo Valdano in January, Arteta said, ‘The game plan, the macrostructure, how we pass the ball or position ourselves no longer matters. Today, you depend on that one player who can make a game-defining action…inspiration; daring for the player to stop trying not to make mistakes or repeating a structure. For everything to be more fluid, to generate chaos.’

That feels like another step towards Eze as a freer left-winger from the manager. We may end up with some ‘pairing’ between the left-winger and the left-back. Maybe Tzolis + Calafiori and Eze + Hincapie for example. That all remains to be seen. But we are going to see more of Eze on the left. It has to work.

MIKEL MERINO- ARSENAL’S RENAISSANCE MAN

As well as missing Saka, Havertz and Odegaard last season, the Gunners missed- in every sense of the word- Mikel Merino for the final three and a half months of the season. Nwaneri’s loan to Borussia Dortmund means that Merino will certainly serve as back-up / support to Martin Odegaard in the advanced midfield position.

With Jesus gone, he also moves up the centre-forward rotation. In fact, I think there is an argument for him to be higher than third choice in that role too but that is a conversation for another day. Merino is also an excellent impact sub. Both when you need a goal (he scored late goals against Chelsea and Manchester United with his head last season) and when you need to take the sting out of a game with controlled possession (which we saw on Monday).

Merino is an incredibly valuable player because he has a variety of qualities. I think his creative properties are undervalued (I wrote about that in a little more detail last winter). Similarly to Havertz, Merino has a really nice blend of technical and physical qualities that are useful in a range of scenarios. His availability would increase Arsenal’s attacking chops.