Strikers by the numbers

If Arsenal move for a 9, who stood out this season?

Discussions about the future of Arsenal’s number 9 slot among the fanbase are really interesting right now.

There are those of us (yours truly included) who think Arsenal don’t need a center-forward, but instead should go into next season with a plan to start Kai Havertz most, Gabriel Jesus second-most and lean on one or both of Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli if needed.

Then there are those who seem to comment frequently about how Arsenal absolutely cannot go into next season without signing a new striker. Whether that’s because of a lack of belief in Havertz, or Jesus, or both, they find it critical.

And, well, I’ve never let my beliefs stop me from making a list, have I? So for today, let’s pretend I’m group two.

But just who are the top strikers out there? I got into my spreadsheets to figure out who did the most this past season and might be worth a look.

Some disclaimers, as always:

• This list is created relying fully on statistics from this season. Players are rated using a whole bunch of data points of varying weights.

• Minimum for inclusion was 900 league minutes, which is 10 full games, on the first cut. I did pare my list down from there to focus on players who started more games than not.

• For the first time, I’ve put guys on samples that are too small for comfort into my honorable mention category. Some of them would rank higher otherwise!

• I generally aimed toward pre-prime or early prime, with a couple of exceptions.

• I always encourage a healthy dose of the eye test before forming a final opinion on any player, so consume responsibly.

• All scores are subject to an adjustment according to league strength, so you shouldn’t have to mentally raise or lower rankings to make it more “fair.”

And as always, you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. So here are some Arsenal guys to look at:

Yo. This is genuinely crazy. FBRef won’t back me here because they’ve lumped all his minutes together, while I’ve gone through and done the painstaking work of only showing numbers here for games where Havertz’s first position was forward. I came away with literally the top-ranking player in my spreadsheet.

Now, there’s almost certainly some small-sample fun going on here, but this is very encouraging. Kai at 9 was essentially a creator and scorer and duel-winner who just didn’t dribble especially well. But despite his getting crap for finishing and ballcarrying, he was among the better scores here in goals per shot on target and turnovers per touch. That feels like something to build on, even if some reversion to the mean might happen (likely in finishing). It’s good to see.

A little better than I’d expected, honestly! I think maybe some of our Brazilian guys just don’t have the best PR at the moment. Jesus needs to get his shots up, and take better shots, and he’ll be fine. With a bit more quickness to boot, he’s back to being good. He’d be 8th in this list.

Not an especially flattering chart for Eddie here, but that almighty goals axis is looking pretty good. Eddie really faded by the season’s end, but I’m excited to see what he can do in a new locale, hopefully Marseille. He has numbers to rank a little better but do to limited minutes, he would be 32nd in this list.