Victor Osimhen

[db10_therza]

I somewhat agree with you, but I also have my doubts that he would score that many goals for/with us.

I say all of this as a big fan of Osimhen by the way, and want to see him here if a very good deal came our way.

Osimhen is a final action forward. But our football is not geared towards a single point of focus and repeated final actions (aka consistent balls over the top, consistent balls towards the channels, or consistent balls towards the back post).

People complain about the amount of chances a player like Jesus doesn't put away, and want a striker who would put them away - that's all well and good.

But we have to remember how many of those chances that he doesn't put away that he is a big part of creating for himself, or as a part of the buildup with others to get us there.

Osimhen is a decent all around player, but thrives on being fed. And our football is not all about feeding specific players or specific parts of the pitch.

Even if he was fit for a 38 game season, he wouldn't get 30 goals, because we don't feed a forward that way. The way City had to change their final actions to feed Haaland.

I reckon he'd get 20 league goals in 38 league starts with us. Maybe 23-25 at a push.

But it would take away from the wings and the 8s because it would require everyone to tailor their movements and decisions to show deference to Osimhen's movements and decisions.

Idk man - what you’re missing here is just how many chances we don’t create because we don’t have a 9.

Think about how many times Martinelli or Ben white or whoever else gets to the by line and then plays a ball to the near post and no one is there. Or the far post - and no one is there. Or they look up and see no one is there and end up cutting it back to a box crashing midfielder who is now crowded out because the defenders didn’t need to worry about marking either post.

These don’t get recorded as xA or whatever else stats because they don’t even make it to an Arsenal player to be recorded as a chance but someone like Osimhen would represent a paradigm change for our attack.

And we don’t have to imagine that hard, we’ve (painfully) seen what kind of numbers an elite 9 can deliver in an elite possession based team. And those numbers are with City players not even playing to Haalands strengths or being optimally set up really as widely discussed by just about everyone.

I feel like @Macho was right when he said the art of the centre forward is underrated on here.

 

[2Smokeyy]

Has there been a title winning team who didn’t have a 20+ goal attacker in their starting XI? Just intrigued.

 

[OnlyOne]

Has there been a title winning team who didn’t have a 20+ goal attacker in their starting XI? Just intrigued.

Loads, City every year pre Haaland.

 

[2Smokeyy]

Loads, City every year pre Haaland.

Sergio Aguero was doing those numbers (20+) between 2014-2019 then Sterling hit 20 in 2019-20. I think there was only one or two seasons when they didn’t have that sort of player in their team but they addressed it with Haaland.

 

[db10_therza]

Loads, City every year pre Haaland.

Only for a couple years tho. Not sure where “loads” came from. 19/20 @2Smokeyy’s all time fave Sterling got 20 goals for City but Salahpool won the league that year anyway and in 18/19 Aguero got 21 league goals.

Edit: Bah the man himself beat me to it.

 

[db10_therza]

I want to stress that it’s obviously possible to win the league with a false 9. We’ve come way too close to it for two seasons in a row for anyone to claim otherwise for a start.

But sometimes we overthink football. It’s easiest to win the league when you have a higher overall quality of players.

Osimhen = quality. No one is suggesting we automatically win the league if we bring in Dominic So… err, I mean some generic no 9.

But quality is quality.

 

[2Smokeyy]

Only for a couple years tho. Not sure where “loads” came from. 19/20 @2Smokeyy’s all time fave Sterling got 20 goals for City but Salahpool won the league that year anyway and in 18/19 Aguero got 21 league goals.

Edit: Bah the man himself beat me to it.

Teta definitely took inspiration from City’s 21-22 season when they didn’t have a killer CF and distributed the goals across the team to get 99 goals in the PL.

Not sure it’s the best option but given the options on the market and the clubs unwillingness to overpay for a solution, it might be the only choice we have.

 

[db10_therza]

Teta definitely took inspiration from City’s 21-22 season when they didn’t have a killer CF and distributed the goals across the team to get 99 goals in the PL.

Not sure it’s the best option but given the options on the market and the clubs unwillingness to overpay for a solution, it might be the only choice we have.

For sure man, there’s more than one way to skin a cat and all I’m saying is I want top top quality coming in to our attack. If it’s a 9 that’s available then get the 9. If it’s a winger then get the winger.

Just get in some quality fs.

 

[Badger_Revenge]

We may have a lot of possession but we don’t create a lot of chances compared to the other top teams. Prime auba would be playing for Martinelli anyway

We were basically third xG, close behind Liverpool and Man City. Might need better to win the league, but I would not say we don't produce a lot of chances, especially given how stodgy we were on offense at the beginning of the year.

My problem is depth in attack. Move Havertz out of the 9 position and we immediately have a problem scoring. Jesus still doesn't look good enough so far this preseason.

 

[Rasmi]

We were basically third xG, close behind Liverpool and Man City. Might need better to win the league, but I would not say we don't produce a lot of chances, especially given how stodgy we were on offense at the beginning of the year.

My problem is depth in attack. Move Havertz out of the 9 position and we immediately have a problem scoring. Jesus still doesn't look good enough so far this preseason.

Last season after 19 games we had 36 goals and there were 6 teams who scored more than us after half the season.

Then we had a crazy period where we scored 32 in 8 which completely changed our overall numbers. So that period completely skew our numbers. But when you look our attacking numbers deeper in terms of xgoals, clear cut chances, shots on target. Our attack completely overachieved last season

 

[Badger_Revenge]

Last season after 19 games we had 36 goals and there were 6 teams who scored more than us after half the season.

Then we had a crazy period where we scored 32 in 8 which completely changed our overall numbers. So that period completely skew our numbers. But when you look our attacking numbers deeper in terms of xgoals, clear cut chances, shots on target. Our attack completely overachieved last season

You are saying the later period skews the overall number upward, but the earlier period could just as easily be skewing the annual number the other way since we settled on a new lineup that we barely strayed from latter half of the season. When we did stray (e.g. against Villa) we had trouble scoring.

All teams have up and down periods. Rather than argue about whether one period or the other was more representative, I look at xG for the year, averaging over all the sites who calculate it. That number is comparable if a bit lower than the other two top teams. I don't see how that can be true if both the quality of chances and number shots on goal are both low. That's just not possible mathematically.

What we weren't great at was converting shots from open play as opposed to set pieces. The efficiency with set pieces (20g v 14.5 xG) made up for the inefficiency from open play. We could use a more efficient finisher, especially since Havertz isn't great and Jesus has been poor.

 

[Makavelii]

Reminder that Kai scored 9 non-pk goals in the last 14 games of the season.

Probably just a purple patch. But it’s conceivable that he gives us the best of both worlds.

 

[Entropics]

Last season after 19 games we had 36 goals and there were 6 teams who scored more than us after half the season.

Then we had a crazy period where we scored 32 in 8 which completely changed our overall numbers. So that period completely skew our numbers. But when you look our attacking numbers deeper in terms of xgoals, clear cut chances, shots on target. Our attack completely overachieved last season

It was king Jover putting Rice on set pieces and revitalizing our game. Don't really expect that to be replicated this season, the little mirage from the Wengerball days fades more and more and teams will eventually notice we're just Stoke premium.

 

[Rasmi]

Reminder that Kai scored 9 non-pk goals in the last 14 games of the season.

Probably just a purple patch. But it’s conceivable that he gives us the best of both worlds.

What both worlds? Havertz is not good finisher

 

[KingT]

Osimhen can make a significant difference in our team, it’s all about closing the margins in particular in big games. There have been instances such as Man City away where we were pushed back deep, and having Osimhen’s as an outlet with his athleticism who can run the channels and advance us up the pitch, he gives teams something to think about

 

[Diesel]

Would probably score 7 goals for us

 

[Makavelii]

What both worlds? Havertz is not good finisher

1) False 9/space maker and 2) consistent goal scorer.

Consistent goalscorer being the questionable part but conceivable.

 

[ArsenesCoatMaker]

All these new pages over a fictional link? @El Duderino you know what to do here

 

[Farzad]

Osimhen future: Report Arsenal will battle PSG for 120m Napoli star

I know cr.ppy source. But this moves makes so much sense and the money is there. After sales we literally will have spent almost nothing and addressed our needs in midfield and defense. It screams big money attacker transfer. Osimhen is best striker and Chelsea want him, in past they would muscle us financially, with Cl money and the ability to pay the fees and wages we now have an edge over them with players simply because of CL. we got much more money than late Wenger.

We can’t let another big Pl team get him, we got the money, have not spent big, have the need. I would be surprised if we didn’t make a move for a top striker. Osimhen, Boniface, Watkins, Isak. Osi best of all 4 and he desperately wants out of Napoli

 

[King87]

Not sure what is happening here? @A_G any legit link to this guy?