Arsenal’s attackers and especially their strikers haven’t been playing all that well lately. One of the more intriguing questions heading into the League Cup tie against Fleetwood Town was which of them Mikel Arteta would pick to start. Instead of choosing, Arteta surprised us and deployed both, setting up in something close to a 4-4-2 against Fleetwood’s back five.
Viktor Gyökeres found himself on the scoresheet so that will shield him from criticism from most people, but the same could not be said for his strike partner Kai Havertz.
The reaction to his performance has been harsh to say the least. He has always been a polarizing figure in the fan base but some of the negative noise had quieted down, not so any more. A 1-1 draw against the 18th place team in League 2 where a central attacker has 0 goals and 0 assists ramps up the reaction.
I can to a certain extent sympathize with the frustration, we can all feel that as fans watching the game but what when we rely too much on what we feel that ends up giving us poor analysis.
Judging an attacking performance solely on the final ball find the back of the net is a trap. Scoring (and stopping) goals is the point of the sport but they make for lousy measuring sticks, especially in a single match.
Why Process > Output
Let’s take two examples here, Player A is having trouble with his touch all game, none of his passes are finding teammates, the defender has him in his pocket and he’s not finding any joy. He has one moment where he doesn’t lose the ball and fires a shot, it is headed straight for the keeper before it hits the butt of the defender and ends up in the back of the net for a goal scored.
Player B is causing chaos all game, every ball up the pitch is sticking to him and he is deploying all of his tricks to lay off and flick the ball on. He is a backboard for combo play at the top of the box and has created 3 great chances for teammates but they have fired over or been saved. His defenders can’t live with his runs and he has forced the keeper to make two saves and he hit the inside of the post and had his shot cleared off the line. He ends up empty handed with no goals or assists here.
This is an extreme but not unheard of type example for games that we have seen from attackers. I would have a pretty easy time saying that I think B had a much better game and one that I would like to see from my attacker, even though the scoresheet will say that he didn’t make a contribution.
Player A ended up having a tangible impact on the score but if he was to play like that over and over, his scoring that goal is not likely to repeat. On top of that he was probably a negative with the ball losses and the inability to affect the defense or bring in teammates.
Long term, you would much rather have the player that is able to repeat getting into dangerous locations to be able to make a sustainable impact on the team’s output. If we care about end product like goals and assists, the best predictors of these for the future are not past goals and assists but rather a players xG, and their ability to get touches in high-value zones on a consistent basis.
Fleetwood Case Study
This Kai Havertz performance against Fleetwood, highlighted the dichotomy between favoring the process that leads to goals and a laser focus on the end product itself.
I am not going to sit here and tell you that this was the greatest game I have seen him play but the reaction that this was a disaster or that he played like shit are just completely off base.
Here is the high level summary of his match against Fleetwood.
When I think about what I want to see from a striker in a match, I focus on can he get touches in the danger zones, can he get his shots off and can he help bring his teammates into play. For Arsenal that will also mean helping to press and doing the defensive work that is the backbone of the team’s identity. If he can be an outlet and combo work that is a nice benefit as well.
In this match that pretty much exactly describes Havertz game.
11 touches in the “shooting zone” with 15 touches total in the box, and 4 touches in zone 14.
7 shots taken from those opportunities plus a key and 4 shot creating actions
11 total defensive actions
8 progressive passes received and 7 final third entry passes received
I have a hard time taking the expectations that I set for an attacker and not seeing that what he did in this match basically fulfills it. It is a disappointment that he wasn’t able to convert any of his chances into goals.
Looking back at the shots that he had in this match and there is a nice mixture of overall play and movement to get into the shooting locations. Here is the clips with all of his shots from the match.
A bit generous to be called a shot, it’s tough to generate power and accuracy from that
He shows off some nice skill overall, starting from the wing he cuts in, has nice combo play, executes a nice spin, slips as he goes to shoot.
This a nice cross from Dowman, the header ends up from pretty far out so this isn’t a high probability chance. He tries to aim it but has the timing off and it goes wide. This looks bad but headers like this are hard.
This is the biggest chance of the match for him and I think he basically does everything right here. He is in the right spot for the ball to fall to him, he makes perfect contact and the ball ends up bouncing off the defender who has no idea and goes over the bar.
He makes a real nice run to get him self free in the box, the angle is tough and he tries a quick first time near post finish to try and catch the keeper out. It’s a good but tough to convert chance.
He slips and can’t make good contact after nicely bringing the ball down.
He reads the cross well and gets on the end of it, the cross is floated so he can’t go with power and instead tries to place it back across into the corner and it ends up just wide.
Overall, I see much more good than bad in this and this is the type of performance that ends with 1-2 goals scored than 0 but that is the way the variance landed in this situation.
Final thoughts
When the discussion and analysis revolves around “did it go in?” fans, writers, podcasters, and pundits will too often end up praising bad process and constructing a narrative the rests on a shaky foundation. It is the classic cartoon from xcxd personified.
I understand the frustration around Havertz this season, he’s been decent but we have much higher expectations for a starter at Arsenal than decent. I am planning a deeper dive into him in the coming weeks so I won’t spoil that too much but the crux of my concern has been that he hasn’t been doing exactly what he was able to do in this match so far this season.
He has never been a shot monster type of attacker, looking to get more higher quality chances rather than relying on volume. So far this season both of those have been lacking and that has lead to a dry spell in front of goal.
I know that this is only Fleetwood and the level of play is not particularly high but my expectation would be for him to go out and be able to exert influence and create volume against this level and that is exactly what he did.
I don’t expect that he will put up 7 shots and 30+ deep touches every match but I just can’t find myself using this as an example of him playing poorly and I think that this is more of a positive sign to build off of going forward.