That wing is not meant for Him,the earlier Arteta realize this the better it will be for us,we can’t Risk it this season again,It will be a shameful thing for us”, Arsene Wenger warns Arteta to stop Using £70M Arsenal player in a wrong position
With there being so much talk surrounding the transfer window and Arsenal’s forward line, the opening Premier League clash had a narrative alongside it that Mikel Arteta may not have wanted. The pressures were always going to be high but for Kai Havertz they were perhaps elevated more than for others.
Arsenal to date have added just one new face to the senior squad in the form of Riccardo Calafiori and that has seen fans clamour for more deals to be done. With less than two weeks remaining in the market, naturally, the demand for more investment is growing.
Havertz however delivered the perfect answer to those grumbles as he scored within the first half of the Gunners’ win. A towering header smacked the back of the net after a great cross from Bukayo Saka.
What might be described as a centre forward’s goal, Havertz wasn’t done there and continued to be a nuisance for the visiting side.
Twice he was brought down in the box with claims of a penalty falling on deaf ears. But he won headers, combined with teammates to create other chances and this would lead to his second goal contribution of the game in the final period.
While of course the bulk of the work was done by Saka, a characteristically familiar attempt from cutting off the right and smashing a left footed shot past Jose Sa, Havertz had the movement, awareness and execution to find his teammate to give control of the game and eventually the win to Arsenal.
This will of course not be enough to silence all the calls that will continue to pepper social media feeds in these remaining days, but what it does is give Mikel Arteta plenty of ammunition when answering questions around the role. It is a market that has not been forthcoming with obvious options for strikers in the market.
Viktor Gyokeres and Victor Osimhen have been the two names that most have looked at. Yet both will cost a huge amount of money and when it comes to their starting chances, neither would get in front of Havertz at this moment.
Therefore, if money is to be spent, perhaps it is better off being focused on the wide areas. Saka came off in the second half and while it was not necessarily due to injury, he did get several regular kicks from opponents and went down holding his knee in the first half.
Leandro Trossard came off the bench but only Reiss Nelson offered a natural third option and he is currently being linked with an exit. There is definitely more scope and need to bring in another winger and this adds further reason to the argument that it might be worth being patient for six to twelve months when it comes to identifying the striker that will supposedly take Arsenal to the next level – that is if Havertz hasn’t done it already of course.