Projecting the goal totals Arsenal's Front Line

It is a bit of a grab bag type newsletter today as the news front for Arsenal and my personal schedule has limited some of my usual output. So today I will use my new simple projection tool to look at what sort of goals totals we might expect from Arsenal's forwards and attacking midfielders this season.

Projecting the goal tallies

The first place to start is with a short bit on what precisely this projection system I will use, this is a simple system that uses historical data and regresses towards league average with a small age adjustment.

Marcel Projections for Soccer

One of the things that I have always wanted to do and has been on my list of projects is creating a simple projection system to get an idea of what a player might do for the coming season. What follows will be my 1.0 version where lots of

Crab StatsScott Willis

Let's start with the strikers

One of the hard things on this is project minutes played especially for players moving teams or changing roles like we have here. I will make an executive decision here and say that they will share most of the minutes with a bit over lap between them where they have 45 90s, with Jesus getting about 70% of the minutes and Nketiah taking the other 30%.

With these numbers plugged in that gives 13 non-penalty goals for Jesus and 5 non-penalty goals for Nketiah.

That might feel underwhelming but the 18 combined goals surpass the 11 that Arsenal's strikers got last season.

The attacking midfielders are going to be a bit tougher because I don't think Arsenal's business is done here and one of the new players (Vieira doesn't currently work with my system because it is top five leagues only)

For Arsenal's attacking midfielders I did a similar type of guestimating at actual minutes but this was pretty close to the projections for the players (I also included Nicolas Pepe because well he will be a good stand-in for an attacking midfielder that Arteta actually trusts to play).

I gave Saka 30.4 90s, Odegaard 28.5, Smith-Rowe 24.7, Martinelli 24.7, and the 5th attacking midfielder currently being represented by Pepe 15.2.

Overall for the non-penalty goals I have the following: Saka 7, Odegaard 6, Smith-Rowe 8, Martinelli 7, and the 5th attacking midfielder currently being represented by Pepe 4.

That is 31 total non-penalty goals from these guys, that would be one less than they scored last season.

Raphinha Thoughts

It looks like Arsenal's position for Raphinha has changed drastically from the start of the week where the agreement looked imminent. It looked so close I felt comfortable going with the full stats scouting write-up.

Stats Scouting: Raphinha

The links of Raphinha moving from Leeds United to Arsenal are pretty strong with growing reports that this is a serious possibility for Arsenal. Arsenal set to intensify efforts to sign RaphinhaArsenal are set to intensify their efforts to sign winger Raphinha from Leeds United next week, The Athle…

Crab StatsScott Willis

It is a little disappointing to see a transfer target fall through like this but this isn't exactly one that I am overly hurt about.

I think Raphinha is a good but NOT elite talent as an attacking midfielder. He would have been a player that made Arsenal better certainly but I also don't think that he was being brought in to be "THE GUY" for Arsenal's attacking midfield, rather I think he would have been more of a 1B type player.

1B for me means a player that is an important first-team player but also not the nailed-on every-match starter. I would have penciled him in for probably 20 or so 90s in the League with a good portion of that coming from the bench. So in this context, it did seem like a bit of a luxury to go to the fee that was rumored for a player that didn't look to go straight into the starting eleven for Arsenal.

I also don't think that this ends Arsenal's pursuit of this type of player but it does probably mean that this will be something that comes later in the window as the team sees what the end of the transfer window shakes loose.

I did go through and write up what my stats rating tool said might be good alternatives.

Raphinha Alternatives for Arsenal (or Chelsea or Barca)

With the Raphinha transfer saga seeming to change with each passing day it seems prudent to start thinking about other potential players that could do something similar for Arsenal. I did go into detail about Raphinha earlier this week, during the days where it looked like Arsenal were on the

Crab StatsScott Willis

Alright I think that is good for today,  for those with a long weekend enjoy!