Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta must look at Chelsea's attacking blueprint as the Gunners search for an "X-factor" forward player in 2025, expert Charles Watts has suggested.
After scoring a club-high 91 goals in the 2023-24 Premier League season, Arsenal opted against spending an extortionate amount on a new striker during the summer transfer window, as Arteta was satisfied with Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz as his central options.
However, Jesus has not scored a Premier League goal since January, while Havertz drew a blank in the 1-1 draw with Fulham last weekend, meaning that he only has one goal to show from his last seven appearances in the top flight.
Havertz did have a goal credited to him in the 3-0 Champions League win over Monaco on Wednesday, but Bukayo Saka fashioned the opportunity, and Watts still feels that Arsenal are still short of a game-changing frontman who can conjure up a goal out of nothing.
"The whole striker debate at Arsenal will always rear its head after a game like [Fulham]," Watts told Sports Mole. "The real tight games when it's not quite happening for you, but you are basically camped around the opposition box, and maybe you need someone to score a goal out of nothing. Arsenal don't really have that player, and it's been an issue.
"You go back to the big games last season. The Bayern Munich defeat in the Champions League, when it was really, really tight. Two-one in the first game, you go over to Munich, it was tight, 0-0 for a long time. Can someone score a goal out of nothing and send yourselves through? Arsenal don't really have that type of player, whether it be a striker or a kind of X-factor attacker."
Watts: 'Michael Olise would have been perfect for Arsenal'
Watts does not buy into the notion that Arsenal need to focus primarily on signing a new centre-forward, rather any offensive player who is capable of producing the big moments when the going gets tough, such as former Crystal Palace sensation Michael Olise.
The 23-year-old has come up with nine goals and seven assists in 21 games for Bayern since joining in the summer, snubbing reported interest from Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea, and he shone in their 5-1 Champions League thrashing of Shakhtar Donetsk in midweek with a brace and a helper for Konrad Laimer.
Watts is now lamenting the fact that Arsenal did not beat Bayern to the winger's signature, adding: "I looked at Michael Olise last season, I just felt he was perfect. Tailor-made for Arsenal for what they were looking for, because there was an acceptance after that Bayern game that that type of X-factor player who could create something out of nothing and win a tight game out of nothing was needed and was going to be looked for in the summer.
"Ultimately, they didn't find who they were looking for because they didn't bring anyone in. But I looked at Olise, I thought he could have been perfect for Arsenal in those sort of tight games."
While Chelsea also failed in their quest to keep Olise in the Premier League, Enzo Maresca's attack is thriving this season, as the Blues sit two points above the Gunners in the top-flight table amid their unforeseen title charge.
The Blues' tally of 35 goals makes them the best attacking force in the Premier League so far this season - netting six more efforts than Arsenal - and Cole Palmer has had a direct hand in 17 of those efforts, 11 of his own and six assists.
Christopher Nkunku is the Blues' leading scorer in all tournaments this term with 12 goals, while Nicolas Jackson, Noni Madueke and Joao Felix have also struck at least five times in the 2024-25 campaign.
'Arsenal lack a Cole Palmer-type player'
© Imago
Palmer has scored six more Premier League goals than Saka this season, and Watts has highlighted both the "mercurial" 22-year-old and Chelsea's overall embarrassment of attacking riches as an example for Arsenal to follow.
"You sort of look at the striker and you aim that towards Chelsea," Watts added. "Nicolas Jackson's had a good season. I think he's a good player, a good striker. He's got something about him, but he's not at the very top of the game right now. And they're still scoring plenty of goals because they've got so many different attacking options that they can turn to. Not necessarily a central striker, but if you're not playing Pedro Neto, you're playing Madueke, for example. If you're not playing Joao Felix, you're playing another one of their counter-swingers.
"And then you've got Cole Palmer, that mercurial player who floats in and around and scores so many goals for them. Arsenal lack that sort of player. I would like another striker at Arsenal, no doubt about it. But I still feel like it doesn't necessarily have to be a number nine. It just has to be another proper goal threat that they just don't have at the moment. You look at the number of goals they score. It's not quite enough.
"And in these really tight games, that's where it's apparent. They share the goals around and that's great, and so ultimately you look at the goals tally and they are up there. Only Brentford and Chelsea have scored more than them in the Premier League this season. So it's like, 'well, what's the fuss about?' But they're obviously shared around. It's someone who could maybe get 20, 25 goals a season. Arsenal just don't quite have that at the moment."
Jesus was guilty of spurning a couple of gilt-edged opportunities in the win over Monaco in midweek, and Watts also spoke in-depth about why the Brazilian is becoming "a real problem" for Arsenal heading into the January transfer window.
The Gunners are back in Premier League action at home to Everton on Saturday afternoon.
Ben Knapton
