In the last week, Arsenal’s hierarchy have been attempting to work out whether they can make the finances work to get Ivan Toney. There are no questions about whether he is worth going for. Mikel Arteta wants him.
That is partly because the Arsenal manager himself is trying to work out what has gone wrong with his attack.
With just four goals in five games, it is the primary reason why they have only taken four points from those fixtures and thrown away the opportunity for a commanding position at the top of the league. It’s not even like they’ve been squandering that many chances, either. Arsenal just aren’t creating with the fizz and finesse they had been for much of last season, and some of this. There’s been an anxiety to their recent build-up that has fed into an agitation at training. Everything suddenly feels forced and prescribed again, in the way it was in Arteta’s difficult first two years. The manager is also one of the Premier League’s more intense figureheads, which can grate on players that bit more when form isn’t going well.
That isn’t to say there is any kind of major issue but Arsenal need a release, and a result. It is all the more frustrating since Arteta felt he had the team close to his ideal before the season began. Declan Rice had that look of a final piece, with Kai Havertz giving them an extra dimension. Except, the closer they get, it’s like the more acutely it exposes their remaining flaws.
Arsenal are lacking that genuinely forceful firepower. The team looks like it could do with a player who represents a greater guarantee of goals.
In that, it’s a bit like Manchester United in 1992-93 when they were seeking to end their own long wait for a title. They’d gone close the previous season only to stumble badly at the end, largely from fatigue and staleness in attack. That carried into the next season. Arsenal have performed far better than United did then, given they went into Christmas hoping to stay top of the league, but there was an element of Arteta’s side just persevering through it. A lot of wins came from late goals, and they have only rarely looked as convincing as last season. A debate persisted over whether it was sustainable.
Things have gone wrong for Arteta over the past month— (PA Wire)
Sir Alex Ferguson famously solved his issue back then by signing Eric Cantona. The rest was football history.
Arsenal do not even need someone so transformative but there might be inspiration from other Ferguson signings, even more so than those made by Arsene Wenger. While the French great had an incredible insight into foreign players who could excel in England, Ferguson had an eye for those players within the Premier League who could make the leap up.
That was often despite the doubts of those around him, let alone outside the club.
The most obvious example is Dwight Yorke. Ferguson was met with a lot of questions when he went for the then Aston Villa forward in 1998, not least from his assistant Brian Kidd.
United’s first choice that summer was Patrick Kluivert, and most would not have put Yorke at that kind of level. Ferguson did. He watched what Yorke did at Villa and felt there could be a multiplying effect in United’s team.
Arteta is understood to be of a similar mind with Toney now. He can see a role for him.
It wasn’t quite supposed to be like this, of course, which is why Arsenal spent as they did in the summer. Arteta envisaged a flowing young team with goals coming from all angles. This is what Arsenal were at their best for long stretches of last season.
Arteta believes Ivan Toney could be the solution to his problems— (Getty)
This Sunday’s FA Cup opposition are pointed in that regard because there was a sense of Arteta recreating elements of Jurgen Klopp’s most famous attack at Liverpool. For all the criticism of Gabriel Jesus’s goal output, the thinking has been that he is supposed to be more like Roberto Firmino in linking play and unlocking space, as the two wide men surge in to score. That tactical development, where it is wingers who now do most of the scoring, has been one of the reasons there is such a premium on No 9s. Even England’s much-vaunted academy structure tends to produce scores of that particular sort of wide forward, rather than true strikers.
It’s just that, with both Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli just 22 years old, it is asking a lot for them to offer the kind of production Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah did when they were both 27 in 2018-19. Saka already looks like he could do with this January’s lower physical load, given the dependence on him for both creativity and pure output. His miss against Fulham was that of a jaded player.
Saka’s goal in that game, however, still made him Arsenal’s top scorer in the league with just six goals. At that rate of production, after another 20 games, he will likely end up with around 11 or 12.
No Premier League team has ever won the title with their top scorer hitting so few. The lowest was Manchester City in the Covid season of 2020-21, as Ilkay Gundogan claimed 13. Even then, they really did have more goals coming from all angles.
And, well, City weren’t up against a team like themselves. That is the other side of this, even beyond Arsenal’s own quality.
Salah, Firmino and Mane had a strong case to be considered the best attacking line-up in the world during their five years together as a defined trident and they still only won one league title.
Arteta was hoping that Saka, Jesus and Martinelli could become a version of the legendary Mane-Firmino-Salah triumvirate at Liverpool— (PA Archive)
If you’re up against this City, even in a season when they might not be at their optimum, you have to come with everything. Can Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson, for all their abilities, really be regarded as that? It’s impossible not to think Arsenal need some more prime quality.
It is why it is overly critical to talk about Klopp or Arteta “spending money”. That’s the level required. City spent close to half a billion net in the season before and two seasons after Pep Guardiola joined, and got the squad so well stacked that they have been able to just keep it ticking over since. That is the same point as where Arsenal are now – but the Gunners have to contend with that Mancunian force.
Arteta initially tried to get around some of these issues this season by making tactical adaptations, especially with the inverted full-back. Arsenal found that affected their passing lanes, so moved back to an asymmetric system with Martin Odegaard leading the press.
Arteta now needs to find something else. Whether that is Toney remains to be seen. The Brentford forward is a gamble in a few ways. He’s 28 and hasn’t played for eight months, so it might be asking a lot to adapt immediately, which is what Arsenal need. The club might not even be able to afford what Brentford would demand this January, which is a straight £100m.
There is a fair argument Arsenal should wait until the summer when there will be more options. Victor Osimhen could be a better long-term option then, while also coming within a more ample full season’s budget. Does that risk Liverpool and City going to another level, though? Is there a chance now?
This is all weighing on Arteta as his team needs to loosen up again.
