Saka has had at least one direct goal involvement in every game he’s played for us this season except for the 1-0 win at Palace.
He’s had a total of 12 direct goal involvements which represents 52% of the goals Arsenal have scored in games featuring Saka and 57% of the goals Arsenal have scored while Saka was on the pitch (2 goals - against PSV and Bournemouth - were scored after Saka had been subbed off with Arsenal already leading 3-0).
The two games he didn’t play were both 1-0 wins (Brentford in the League Cup and Man City), so Saka has been directly involved in 48% of Arsenal’s total goals this season, including those scored in games he didn’t play.
Personally, I don’t think this is because of anything Saka is doing. He’s been playing very well, as usual, but the fact Arsenal are depending on him so heavily for goal contributions reflects the fact that our other attacking players have been much less dangerous than we would like.
What needs to be done to remove this burden from Saka and ensure we don’t become a one-man attacking team?
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Remove?! He’s a future ballon d’or… It comes with the territory. But we do a mobile striker that’s good in the air who can hold the ball as well.
In fairness Gabby had a a great game as RW.
But we have very few choices for the #9 role.
He’s been the only one of our first choice front 3 to be consistently playing so far this season. Gabi and Gabi gave both missed chunks. Makes sense that the “second string”, even if they’re good, aren’t contributing as much as the first choice in each position
Yeah that’s the problem I’m raising. We only have one serious attacking threat at the moment.
He is a machine and I love him. But we simply don’t have anyone who can play as a rw effectively. We need someone who can play there too.
I see our problem as having a poor conversion rate. We are missing too many chances, whether it is Kai misfiring, Martinelli crossing with no one in the box, Jesus kicking it over. None of them are sitters but we simply are not scoring as many as we should and that is killing us.
We’re slightly outperforming our xG, which would suggest that shot conversion isn’t the problem. Although I agree, we have quite a few attacking players who struggle to be clinical
I don’t think XG includes the issues we are having. We have not had a real striker that was prolific in a long time and while it is great that Mø, Gabbi and Saka had so many goals and assists last year, it clearly wasn’t enough.
Hasn’t been a full season yet, let’s look at the numbers when we’re 30+ games in
Agreed, I’m just commenting on what we’ve seen so far
Thing is, Saka could blank for 4/5 games, Martinelli gets a couple, Ode gets a couple and all of a sudden it’s a very different outlook.
Plus the Chelsea game was the first time we have seen Saka, Jesus and Martinelli start together this season and you’ve got to remember that’s the combination that got us so many goals last season.
Team has been disjointed so far and there are many different reasons for it but one of them has been availability.
This is why there’s no point in comparing 9 games in the PL to a full season. Give it time.
I feel it’s more reflective of the lack of depth of talent in other positions. Like yes, Saka is world class and deserves time on the pitch. But if he has an off day, then the team struggle to get a result. I feel like the really strong, successful teams have the quality to secure games even when their main player isn’t producing.
No one batted an eye lid when Messi was doing it week in week out. Now, I’m not comparing him to Messi, but I think we should start normalising how good some of our players actually are.
If he were as good as Messi and could regularly put up 40+ goal contributions a season then I wouldn’t have any concerns about Arsenal relying on him heavily. But that’s a big “if”
Also, don’t forget that Martinelli and Jesus have both been injured and he has stepped up in their absence.
We’re totally reliant on him and will continue to be until we get a striker who can stick the ball in the back of the net.
We weren’t so reliant on him last season and we had exactly the same strikers then as we do now. The problem is more in the midfield I think.
Our two strikers got the same amount of goals combined as Martinelli (if my maths are correct) - 15. Perhaps we aren’t totally just reliant on Saka, but we are completely reliant on midfielders/wingers having to score because we have striker options who don’t do their job.
We are dependant because hes one of our best players. I do agree however that we’ve become overly reliant on certain players. If Odegaard has an off day we struggle massively offensively in terms of creating chances. We need others to start taking on more responsibility in the final third. We’ve became far too predictable
Cole Palmer would’ve been a good Saka backup, but City probably wouldn’t want to strengthen us more
What sort of nonsense is this. Saka is doing his job. Saka didn’t play and we still won our games without him if he plays and has a goal involvement sweet
Look at the invincible season and the amount of goals Henry and Pires scored. It’s the reason why you have good players, because they score goals and win games for the team.
not sure if this is something worth arguing about. There have been numerous articles analysing our overall chance creation issues. What appears to be a reliance on Saka is a symptom, not a cause.