Things have been going well for Arsenal recently as they seek to secure Champions League football for the first time in five years, but there are still obvious areas where they could look to improve. Despite performing manfully in a position that Mikel Arteta has admitted is outside his comfort zone, the Gunners are likely to look for an upgrade on Granit Xhaka in the left eight role this summer. The other area they are set to strengthen in is up front.
After Folarin Balogun's loan move to Middlesbrough and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's controversial departure to Barcelona, Arsenal's main orthodox option at striker has been Alexandre Lacazette. The Frenchman certainly has his strengths when it comes to bringing others into play and has recorded seven assists in his past 12 matches. However, when it comes to goalscoring he has really struggled this season, managing just two strikes from open play in the Premier League.
Unfortunately for the Gunners their out and out alternative Eddie Nketiah has done little to suggest he should be dislodging Lacazette up top despite his poor form in front of goal. In fact the England under-21 international has come under intense criticism for his lethargic cameos in away games against Aston Villa and Wolves recently. This has left Arteta looking for alternative solutions to spearhead his attack.
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After last month's win over Brentford, the Spaniard suggested that Emile Smith Rowe could be one of these. “I think he can play in four positions," he told press at the time. “As a left winger, a left attacking midfielder, a right attacking midfielder and he can play as a nine, very, very well.”
From the outset it's easy to see why he thinks this. Arteta wants a striker capable of dropping into midfield pockets of space and combining well with his teammates. This also draws defenders out of their position creating gaps in the opposition backlines for wide forwards like Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka to exploit. When playing as a left winger Smith Rowe finds himself drifting into these deeper interior areas of the pitch anyway, and while he might need to bulk up a bit in order to deal with the extra attention he would get from opposition centre backs, there's no reason the Hale Ender couldn't replicate his combination play as a false nine.
Above all though Arteta wants a player who is capable of putting the ball in the back of the net. Having laid the ball off to his teammates in the deeper areas, the Spaniard wants someone who then has the mobility to bomb forward and get on the end of chances. As Arsenal's joint leading goal scorer this season Smith Rowe has demonstrated his finishing credentials already and with many of those strikes coming from late arrivals into the box, it's easy to see how he could be the striker in a Mikel Arteta team.
However, there is something of a spanner in the works. If Arteta had this as a plan he wanted to pursue in the long term you feel that he and his coaching staff would have begun working on it already, but during an interview with FourFourTwo, Smith Rowe revealed that no such practice has begun.
"That’s interesting…" the England international said when asked about his manager's comments. "I tried it last season (in the Europa League semi-final first leg vs Villarreal) and it didn’t really work, I can’t lie. I’ll play anywhere that the manager wants me, but yeah – it’s definitely a tough position!" When asked specifically if they'd been working on the role, Smith Rowe said: "Not as much as people think. In terms of my positioning and where I can be to help the team, definitely, but not so much as a number nine."
With this in mind it's interesting to think what this means for Arsenal's summer recruitment. It is no secret that they will be in the market for a striker given the fact that both Lacazette and Nketiah are set to leave the club when their contracts expire at the end of this season.
Up until now it has largely been assumed that with so much to do in the transfer window, the Gunners will only look to bring in one centre forward. But now it has been revealed that they have not begun working on alternative solutions up top yet, there is a chance that they could be in the market for two.
Recently the Gunners have been linked to more nimble forwards who tend to drift wide such as Benfica's Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo of PSV. This is in stark contrast to the more orthodox number nines such as Dusan Vlahovic and Dominic Calvert-Lewin who football.london understands they were tracking in January.
Of course there's a chance that Balogun could return from his loan at Middlesbrough and be reintegrated into the squad, while there is still a speck of doubt over where Martinelli will end up positionally going forward. However, with such a variety of forwards being linked, and no internal contingency plans being made as of yet up top, it seems as though Arsenal could well be in the market for two strikers this summer rather than just the one.
