Will we score more? Looking ahead to the season « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx
The Arsenal game is very much based on trying to score more goals than the other team. We are a very attacking team and this also leads to the fact that our defenders are under more pressure than defenders in other teams. If you look at a team like Blackburn who defend deep and who are very much defensive orientated and who defend in large numbers it is clear to see that those defenders are not left alone like Arsenal defenders are sometimes.
Now we could of course try to play more defensive. But would the supporters love it? Because it could mean that we have more games finishing with a draw. Now we go out for the win and well sometimes we run in to the wall and sometimes we lose when the ball bounces too far of the wall.
Defending is down to the whole team and not just the defenders. One could blame Djourou for the second Boca Juniors goal because he kind of slipped and didn’t connect properly with the ball. But if you look at the gap in the midfield from where Boca Juniors scored their second goal then it is plain to see that the initial mistake happened there.
But playing like we do we rely on our goal scoring ability and on the fact that our forward going players need to score more goals. So I thought it would be interesting to give a view on how exactly our goal scoring ability is positioned for the moment. Problem is that we don’t know if all the players who are current Arsenal players will be Arsenal players in September. But I just kept them in this because I don’t know what will happen. I also didn’t speculate on all the names being thrown around. One name mentioned is not only a good goal scorer but also has a very high number of assists. But as he isn’t an Arsenal player yet as far as I know, this doesn’t mata. (I couldn’t let this chance pass me by without typing this)
Anyway, I made up a table with all the current midfielders we have and gave the assists and the goals behind their name in last season.
| Player | Goals | Assist | Total Involved |
| Van Persie | 18 | 7 | 25 |
| Walcott | 9 | 7 | 16 |
| Chamakh | 7 | 4 | 11 |
| Arshavin | 6 | 11 | 17 |
| Song | 4 | 2 | 6 |
| Diaby | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Wilshere | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Vela | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Gervinho | 15 | 10 | 25 |
| Ramsey | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Subtotal | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 67 | 51 | |
| Fabregas | 3 | 11 | 14 |
| Nasri | 10 | 1 | 11 |
| Total | 80 | 63 |
So if every player would just score the same goals as he did last season we could end up with some 80 goals. Now the difficult thing is that none of us knows what the future will bring. Because some players will score more goals and other might suffer a bit.
But I will stick out my neck and try to predict how things will go for each player in this season. I could go horribly wrong with this and believe me I am not someone who can tell the future. Or else I would have won the Euro Millions lottery a few times by know and I would be the president of Arsenal.
But here is my prediction for the players involved:
Van Persie: will score more and will give more assists. He only played half a season and I think this will be his wonder year. Unless of course a terrible injury spoils it. But I think by now he will have torn every muscle or other thing there is to torn and will stay fit. Touch wood…
Walcott: getting better and better according to his annual statistics. Still a bit vulnerable in his ankles but should be able to do as good as last season.
Chamakh: had a great start to his Arsenal career, then was the main victim of Van Persie his goals and lost it a bit. So he will be depending on an injury of Van Persie but I don’t think (or better said hope) it will not come so I’m afraid Chamakh will score less goals this season.
Arshavin: I think our little one will have his last big one. He feels more pressure than ever on his position and I do have the feeling he is ready to give it one final go. So I think he will score more and will assist more goals.
Song: will do the same thing as last year. He will get more rest this season I think with Frimpong coming up and so it could be that he is fresher and could be more involved in the goals but if he would be more involved in preventing goals and for the rest do in attack like last season it will be fine for me.
Diaby: if, and this is a very big IF he stays fit and if the other teams don’t kick him off the field again by aiming at his ankles he should do better. But as the refs in the EPL will not give him any cover (I think Diaby is paying the penalty for looking to similar to Vieira for many refs). So if he does the same it will mean that he has been kicked off the field again. If he can stay fit he will improve both on goals and in assists.
Wilshere: Much more pressure on him than last year. Then he was unknown, no one expected anything from him. But I think Jack is one who can handle such pressure. And as he is still young he will get better. Just compare this to Fabregas at the same age and then Fabregas had 2 goals and 4 assists in a whole season. So my prediction is that he will do better than last season.
Vela: if he gets more chances he will score more and give some more assists. I think Vela is in the last chance season and so I hope (because I really like him) he can finally show his ability. Come on Carlos score and let score.
Gervinho: I gave the numbers of his last season in Lille. In his first outings for Arsenal he has shown he can be a very good addition. So if he does the same as in Lille I think we should be pleased.
Ramsey: No doubt about this one. He will do better than last season. He will play more and we know he can shoot and can score. And he also is very young but he is now coming at the age where he will be setting the world on fire. So I predict a lot more goals from this young Welshman this season.
Rosicky: Surely he can’t do worse than last season. The strange part is that he still is very valuable for his national team and helps them with goals and assists. So I think he will do better this season than the last one. He better…
And then we have the 2 rebels. Will they stay or will they go? IF they stay I’m expecting more from them. And I think Fabregas will have a point to prove. And he will score more goals this season. He will give the usual numbers of assists somewhere between 15 and 25. So for me he is priceless and I would hate to see him go to be honest. But I doubt he will stay just to please me… But one can but hope.
And when Nasri stays I think he will score around the same numbers of goals but will add a few more assists to this game. It is one of his weaknesses in fact and so I hope he can work on that a bit and let other score a few more goals. Well I hope this is the case when he stays at Arsenal of course. Otherwise he can rot on some bench.
So my overall prediction is that we should score more goals with the players we have for the moment. But hey who knows what will happen in the next days or weeks and so I will have to rewrite the whole thing again. Well not the whole thing maybe…