The loss of Bukayo Saka to a hamstring tear in December struck a note of tragedy on Arsenal’s season. I just can’t think of (m)any examples of a team winning the league while their best and most productive attacker had a significant layoff. When Arsenal won the league title in 1997-98, it owed much to the fact that Eric Cantona unexpectedly retired in the summer of 1997 and Roy Keane ruptured his ACL that September.
This was the United line-up on 14 March, 1998 when Marc Overmars’ winning goal at Old Trafford put the Gunners on the road to the league title. Schmeichel; Curtis (Thornley ’52), G.Neville, Berg, Irwin; Beckham, Johnsen (May ’79), P.Neville (Solskjaer ’77), Scholes, Cole, Sheringham.
You are not misreading that, Ronnie Johnsen and Phil Neville in central midfield, John Curtis at right-back before being hauled off due to Marc Overmars leaving footprints all over his back, Gary Neville at centre-half and two of their match rescuing subs were Ben Thornley (who joined Huddersfield Town two months later) and David May. Injuries. Fuck. You. Bottom line.
All analysis of Arsenal’s shortcomings this season should start with injuries as the central reason. It is certainly not the only reason but it is certainly the most significant. The loss of a player like Saka creates many tremors. First and foremost, you are losing a regular match winner and a dizzyingly consistent creator of end product.
You are also losing a totem pole of your team, a player who drags defenders away from other areas, who changes the way teams play against you, your lighthouse in the fog against a packed defence. But there are also less tangible factors to consider, namely, the team just has not been used to playing without him. He pretty much always plays.
This is true of every big player in every big team. Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk played the full 90 minutes for Liverpool against Lille on Tuesday evening. The shock of losing such a big player takes some time to navigate too. The vast majority of elite teams do not have ready-made replacements for their star turns.
If Liverpool were to lose Salah for an extended period, they would muddle through with some trial and error combination of Gakpo, Nunez, Diaz and Jota. All good players but none of whom have played on Liverpool’s right side extensively.
There was always going to be a sense of trial and error in how Arsenal navigated the loss of Saka. Since the Crystal Palace game when Saka hobbled off, Arsenal’s right sided attackers have been; Martinelli, Nwaneri, Nwaneri (subbed at HT for Martinelli), Trossard, Jesus (subbed in the first half for Sterling), Sterling, Martinelli, Sterling.
17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri is the only player to make consecutive starts on the right in that time and, in the second of those games, he had to be subbed at half-time with a hamstring injury. It is a reminder of how delicate Nwaneri’s muscles will be to the rigours of men’s football, even if he is already built like a man.
With Nwaneri still developing physically and Sterling already eyeing up retirement villas, Arsenal’s options are not as bountiful as they look on paper. Essentially, Havertz, Martinelli and Trossard are the load bearing walls but there are nascent signs that the trio are beginning to deliver at a higher level again.
I would ordinarily bill Trossard, Martinelli and Havertz as good support actors to Saka, who is the bona fide A-lister. Arsenal scored once against Ipswich, Brighton and 10-man Manchester United and couldn’t score against Newcastle immediately following Saka’s injury. But the goals are starting to roll again a little, with braces against Spurs and Villa and a trio against Dinamo Zagreb in the last three games.
A week ago, Scott Willis wrote a post about Kai Havertz’s finishing, when public opinion of his finishing was at its basement level. Scott put Havertz’s woes in front of goal at that point largely down to negative variance. One of the things I like about Scott’s work is that he is never afraid to have an unpopular take in times of high emotion if the data is telling him something that the rest of us might not want to hear.
Scott’s concluding sentence in that piece was, ‘There is almost never a good time for a striker to go cold in front of goal, but this is probably up there as one of the worst times it could have happened. It doesn’t help that he has had a massive burden put upon him with the injury situation at Arsenal but the numbers suggest that if Arsenal stick with him, he should bounce back into form.’
Scoring in consecutive games since that piece was published is probably not enough to earn any garlands but I think it does vindicate Scott’s point. We are seeing Trossard, Martinelli and Havertz begin produce at a good level (albeit still within a small sample size). Since the defeat to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup semi-final, a game Arsenal had more than enough chances to score several times, the picture has shifted.
In the last three games, Leandro Trossard has a goal and two assists, Martinelli a goal and an assist and Havertz two goals and an assist. One of Saka’s most productive moves is the cross to the back post from the corner of the penalty area. These balls are very difficult to defend and with players like Havertz and Merino on the opposite side, Arsenal plan to score a lot of goals this way.
Saka averages 0.64 crosses into the area per game, the highest in the squad. But Martinelli (0.56) and Trossard (0.42) are elevating their numbers in this respect. It was heartening to see Martinelli score against Villa from a Trossard cross to the back post- an area Arsenal successfully attacked many times during that game.
Havertz was also the beneficiary of a more central cross from Trossard against Villa. Meanwhile, Havertz scored a header against Zagreb from a back post Martinelli cross (and Nwaneri put a peach of a cross onto the forehead of Declan Rice in that game too). Havertz has 14 goals in 30 games this season so far, more than Diaz, Nunez and Gakpo. It is a very respectable return, the issue is not Kai Havertz, it’s that Arsenal only has Kai Havertz.
Gabriel Jesus was also starting to deliver in front of goal again prior to his injury. Everybody, Mikel Arteta included, knows that Arsenal require reinforcement in attack, but there are nascent signs that Trossard, Martinelli and Havertz are starting to deliver without Saka. Now they must prove they are not ‘streaky’ and that they can maintain it.
