Posted by Previously: Goalkeeper. Fullback. Center Back. Center midfield.
Competition for places is a good thing in football, and Arsenal have loads in attack heading into Arteta’s third season in charge.
The Gunners have spent heavily here in recent years trying to add goals to a team that’s regressed heavily in that area since Arsene Wenger left. The best among them though: A 19-year-old academy product from Ealing who can play on the left or the right.
| Left Wing | Age | Contract | Right Wing | Age | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang | 32 | June 2023 | Bukayo Saka | 20 | June 2024 |
| Gabriel Martinelli | 20 | June 2024 | Nicolas Pépé | 26 | June 2024 |
| Willian* | 33 | June 2023 | Reiss Nelson* | 22 | June 2023 |
Right Wing: Bukayo Saka
Rating: 8/10
Nineteen years old and silk on the ball, Bukayo Saka enters 2021-22 as Arsenal’s most valuable attacking player. That is, when he plays as an attacker.
Saka’s spent time at six of Arsenal’s 10 outfield positions over the past two years. His versatility is a key reason he got into the team in the first place, and why he’s been able to stay there ever since.
But after a Euro Tournament in which he made himself a household name for England, he’s no longer an adjustable piece in the Arsenal lineup. His name should be first on the team sheet.
It’s the opinion of this website that that place will be at right wing. That’s where he played for England this summer, and where Saka himself views his future. “I’m here as a forward,” he told the Guardian ahead of the Euros earlier in the summer.
Arteta seems to agree. Llast year when pressed, he went with the lumbering Granit Xhaka or the right-footed Cedric Soares at left back in the absence of Kieran Tierney, opting to keep Saka further up the pitch. With good reason:
Saka signed a contract extension last summer, but three years from its expiration, those at Arsenal are showing the first signs of concern that they won’t be able to keep him past June 2024. We’ll leave that for another day.
Left Wing: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Rating: 6/10
Twenty goal scorers don’t grow on trees, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang might still be one. He also might not.
He *is* just a year removed from the Premier League Golden Boot, and almost singlehandedly won the 2020 FA Cup for the club. Arteta probably isn’t going to turn his back on the guy who got him promoted from “head coach” to “manager.” Even if maybe he should.
So Aubameyang starts somewhere. Admittedly, we’re guessing where. Links to Alexander Isak earlier in the summer, and Tammy Abraham later, show an Arsenal team looking for reinforcements at the nine, and Arsenal will hope not to leave €400k/week on the bench after doing so for two years with Mesut Ozil. Along with Arteta’s unwillingness to play Aubameyang even when he WAS firing, the guess is Aubameyang starts the season at left wing.
We know he can score from there. It’s where he contributed 30 goals (in all competitions) two seasons ago, and where he scored 22 in the Premier League in 2018-19. The question remains: Was last year’s 10-goal PL output—only five from LW—an aberration, or a sign of things to come?
Unfortunately, I tend to think the latter. Usually, the post-30 decline resembles more a cliff than a hill, and rarely does a 32-year-old climb back up the mountain after falling off it. Aubameyang took a swan dive.
For a manager fighting for his life, Arteta probably doesn’t have time for Aubameyang to figure it out. Either he’s firing early, or someone like Nicolas Pépé or Gabriel Martinelli takes his place.
Reserves
For a team that struggles to score goals, having your best two attackers play the same position is not ideal. Yet here Arsenal are, with Saka and Nicolas Pépé competing for minutes at RW.
I think Pépé can contribute at LW. Hopefully Arteta does too. For me, he has to be on the pitch for Arsenal to be successful.
His per90 shooting stats are something to behold:
| Standard Stats | ||
|---|---|---|
| Statistic | Per 90 | Percentile |
| Goals | 0.57 | 96 |
| Non-Penalty Goals | 0.50 | 97 |
| xG | 0.38 | 86 |
| npxG | 0.32 | 85 |
| Shots Total | 2.75 | 82 |
| Shots on target | 1.04 | 81 |
| Shots on target % | 37.7% | 59 |
| Goals/Shot | 0.18 | 93 |
| Goals/Shot on target | 0.48 | 89 |
Nicolas Pépé Among those playing more than 1,500 Premier League minutes, Pépé’s ranks are fifth in goals scored per90, and 15th in shots taken. He scored five goals in the final three games of the season, when he finally looked like he was worth a portion of what Arsenal paid for him.
It’s time for him to take a leap. He looks ready to do so.
So does Gabriel Martinelli. After spending the first three months of 2020-21 recovering from injury, he returned to the Arsenal team in December and flashed glimpses of what had him ahead of Saka 18 months ago.
But only glimpses. He injured his ankle in the warm up before the Man City game in January, and when he returned Arteta seemed reluctant to fully take the hand-break off him. Martinelli started only four games after returning from the ankle injury in February. One of them was a borderline MotM performance against Newcastle in May:
Martinelli was set to go through normal pre-season for the first time under Arteta, which would have set him up for success from the outset of 2021-22. Arteta said as much in May:
“I think that having a pre-season is going to be really helpful because we haven’t had any time to work together yet, since we arrived.”
But a late Olympic call up—in which he won a gold medal—means Martinelli will now have no pre-season to speak of. For a player already fighting an uphill battle to get minutes in Arteta’s team, that doesn’t bode well for his chances to get work his way into Arteta’s plans before Christmas.
He’s talented enough that it might not matter.
With other reserves set to leave the club, either permanently or on loan, there’s an opportunity for Martinelli to force his way into the team sooner rather than later. Him coming back right away from Japan, rather than take a holiday, works in his favor.
Reiss Nelson and Willian are those other reserves, and both look likely to leave before the end of the window. Willian remains under contract until 2023, with Nelson’s running out next year.
The club are aiming to tie down Nelson longterm before sending him out on loan this year. He should have gone last year, but opted to stay and fight for a place that never materialized.
He’s too good to lose for nothing, and there’s a reason Arteta wants him to stay:
He’s probably a year away from contributing to a Champions League chase. A midtable Premier League side would be lucky to have him.
No one is lucky to have Willian. The former Chelsea winter is among Arsenal’s biggest mistakes this century, so big they’re already looking to offload him.
Doing so is proving to be difficult, since he came back for pre-season about a stone overweight. If he plays a minute for Arsenal this year, we riot.