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Arsenal needs goals. What the transfer window will not offer, they must find within their limited options, because a shortage with two goals in the Park of St. James is an intimidating task for everyone except the most free score of sides.
On Sundays That is exactly what the semi -finalists of the EFL cup look likeThe goals that rain on Manchester City in perhaps the clearest triumph so far in the term of office of Mikel Arteta. In the immediate aftermath, the faith ran through the team. They not only expect them to destroy their first leg deficit to Newcastle, but also in style.
“We go there to win the game and to score three, four, five,” said Gabriel Martinelli. Arteta was no less exuberant. “The next stop is a final in Wembley,” he said in his press conference before the competition. “You can feel it right away, the wrist that the game gave us won against City, the way we did it. We are really going to try it.”
Arsenal vs. Manchester City Score, Highlights: Gunners destroy Pep Guardiola’s silk in Premier League Clash
PARDEEP CATRY
In the aftermath of their explosion in the output on Sunday, their 2-0 loss at the Emirates Stadium takes a different complexion. Sometimes you set exactly one expected goal and you score five. Sometimes you will delete three xg and you will not score one. In microcosmos, the recent form of Kai Havertz characterizes that of Arsenal as a whole. The opportunities continue to come for all tests and tests.
This was the point that Arteta was planning to hammer home after that brace from tapping cup, first to Newcastle and then Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup. Havertz was the poster boy for an avalanche of missed openings, since the well -known “Arsenal needs a real, real striker” talk point – One that dates legitimate from the first interview I have ever taken on London Football – has become louder. Havertz now has three goals and two assists in his last four starts.
How to look and opportunities
- Date: Wednesday February 5 | Time: 3 p.m. etc.
- Location: St. James’ Park – Newcastle Upon Tyne, England
- Live stream: Paramount+
- Chances: Newcastle United +220; Sign +250; Arsenal +115
Arsenal continues to create risks
Because of all this, Arsenal has continued to get itself in the right places. Indeed, they do this with increased regularity, even if the season has worn out. Prior to the international break of November, this was a team of an average of 1.5 non-penalty expected goals (NPXG) per match. Since then, that number has risen to 1.8. They are on average an extra goal for the two games, a shot more per game.
Even without Bukayo Saka, the player whose precision and calmness may have just meant one or more goal of the six big opportunities they missed in the first stage, the NPXG is only marginal. Get their best player from the team, Sideline Back -Up -Spits Gabriel Jesus for the season, and this is still a team that can place 15 shots per match, a boat load of them decent opportunities, while you are the best attackers in the game Exercise on the other side. What should Arsenal do to cancel their first bridle shortage? The same thing they have done all the time.
All this is a way to explain why Arsenal stopped the deadline day. “We are very aware that we only want to take certain types of players with us,” said Arteta. “We have to be very disciplined by that. I think we were.”
Their reasoning turned out to be that a warm body was not a way of carrying out transfer activities because of a warm body. Whether Kai Havertz will feel the same in the international break of March, which will come before the Gunners after a point of six games in 22 days, is now under discussion. The calendar might be able to pay a trip to Dubai after Wednesday’s game, from that moment it looks like a sprint to the finish line for Europe’s upper sides.
What is the Backup Plan for Havertz?
Leandro Trossard is the only approach to a backup for Arsenal’s first selection center Vooruit. The problem is that they need him to connect the Saka-shaped hole in wide areas, where otherwise it will be Martinelli, Ethan Nwaneri and the extremely not depicted by Management Raheem Sterling. Both were also thrown away by Arteta as options to play in the front with the manager who acknowledges “something else” will have to be tried.
Arsenal can claim that they have tried it for something more meaningful. If PIF was not concluded that Al-Nassr Jhon would get Duran instead of Victor Boniface, there would have been a deal for Ollie Watkins. Their interest in Benjamin Sesko was revived, but RB Leipzig, who was fighting to qualify for next season’s Champions League, considered the monetary value of having that striker in their side to arouse against all the realistic stimuli that Arsenal could offer to do the deal early.
Mathys Tel was linked, but only fleetingly considered. Anyway, Tottenham and Manchester United were able to offer a more pronounced first team role. While his fan base keeps an eye on a third window where serious money was not invested in strengthening the attack – Havertz was convinced to sign for Arsenal, precisely because he would not play as a striker, a last sigh, low costs swing – Arteta would like to continue. “When you do your best and do things with the right process and see the people who all share the same intentions and testaments and after you have not reached it, okay. There are certainly things to learn from it, there are always.
“You have to move. That is a piece that was important at the moment. Now we have to continue. Nobody knows if it was better to have done it or not. We will know at the end of the season.”
The signs can be clear long before that time. The game of Wednesday evening is not the one that Arsenal should have recruited and speak so much of the sounds in the club and from Arteta to the desire to add real quality. However, there is a level below that Arsenal did not really fall. In the absence of a better term, they need a minute before this season is out. A senior striker who can intervene for Havertz with 20 minutes left in a game that has already been won, which can start against a Leicester or Ipswich with better options in reserve. A smash glass in case of emergencies. Another Raheem Sterling, you could say, their own equivalent of what someone like Joselu was for Real Madrid last season.
After all, there can be many more games like Wednesday for them. More occasions will be in the Champions League, perhaps even the title race. Arsenal owed it to itself to do everything to ensure that Havertz and the company were as fresh as possible for those big games. It is difficult to see how that can be true.