General wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 6:20 pm
Arteta still has a lot to prove but I’m not sure how he can be blamed for not signing a striker. So he is deliberately sabotaging his own team by declining to sign players we need? Sometimes I read certain posts and log off in disgust. It’s PTSD from the Wenger era and some still haven’t moved on. It’s the same people who convinced themselves the French waffler would never be sacked by Kroenke so didn’t support the protests in 2017.
We scored 91goals last season which was more than the Liverpool team that won the title in 2020. Judging by credible reports, it’s quite clear efforts were made to bring in a striker (Sesko, Gyokeres) or an attacking winger with potential (Nico Wiliams). None of these targets materialised for various reasons and this team is now at a stage where we have to target truly elite talent and not just buy for the sake of buying.
Sorry General, but I'm not buying that. Whose fault is it that he didn't buy the striker that most of us think we need? We can't blame Kroenke for that and while Edu is heavily involved, it's Arteta who's in the big chair and ultimately makes the decisions.
A CF and a centre mid were the two vital positions to fill and while it remains to be seen how good Merino will be, he failed to buy a striker. I've only seen Sesko in the Euros, where he was poor and I know nothing about Gyokeres, other than he was at Coventry prior to Sporting and that doesn't fill me with confidence, perhaps unfairly. Fact remains, he failed to find an improvement on Havertz and Jesus, which really isn't a difficult task....he should have had a look over Hackney Marshes. Signing a striker should have dominated his thinking all summer.
I said all along that he wouldn't buy a striker, because he's convinced by Havertz and Jesus (how the latter wasn't sold this summer is beyond me). I've said all along that the inexplicable devotion to Havertz will be the rock that sinks Arteta...or should be if we win fuck all.
It doesn't matter how many goals we scored, we have two strikers that simply don't and won't score anywhere near enough goals. We need a minimum 20 league goals a season striker if we're to win the top prizes and out two will do well to hit that target jointly. There's a barmy idea that a goal scoring striker would dilute the goals from other areas, but that is a crap notion. It's the failure to convert chances that is the problem with our two, plus there inability to be where a striker needs to be.
Seems to me that Arteta is following the false 9 concept that Pep was using when Arteta was at City, but quite apart from our attacking midfielders not being at the level City had, look what's happened since the out and out striker Haaland was signed.
It's on Arteta, no one else.
Oh, as for the people tha wanted Wenger out, it was those on here that were fully behind the protests that are the ones questioning Arteta'a failure to sign a striker.