Gyokeres and needing more goals…

Morning guys.

I’m off to a local market in Lymington shortly. Artisan bread, home made chutneys and if I’m lucky, there will be some local honey and chilli jam and many other things to sample along the way. I love bread, baking it as well as eating it so fingers crossed there’s something unusual on sale, or at least unusual to me. Yesterday I mentioned how I feel obliged to show interest in Bournemouth FC, Southampton FC too because the people where I live, love one or the other so it would be rude not to know a little about both. At least know their most recent result. It seems Bournemouth have backtracked on their “he’s not for sale at any price” mantra from the summer and are now considering selling their prize midfielder Alex Scott in January. Good time to sell, assuming they will because nothing says overinflated transfer fees than a winter transfer windows. Apparently Liverpool are favourites to sign him. We don’t need him that’s for sure, regardless of how good he is. At least I don’t think we do.

Two things struck me from Mikel Arteta’s pre Nottingham Forest press conference.

Viktor Gyokeres’ form:

These are moments in a player’s career, or in a season, I would say, and we are trying to help him as much as possible. He has some very good moments; three or four times he’s been in front of goal with no keeper, and the ball should arrive to him, and it doesn’t. Then maybe they are talking about something else, but these are the strikers. It’s very small margins – scoring or not scoring changes the narrative. We should know the perception of how much he can help the team.

Scoring more goals from open play than set-pieces:

We are getting criticised for scoring goals! Regardless of the manner that we score them, the team is showing a great attacking flow. We’ve scored some beautiful goals but the value is exactly the same. I think we have to be a team that is able to score in many, many ways and that will make it harder for the opponent.

Arteta said: He (Gyokeres) has some very good moments; three or four times he’s been in front of goal with no keeper, and the ball should arrive to him, and it doesn’t.

So, if Viktor is making the right moves but the ball isn’t arriving to him, that’s either down to his teammates not spitting him or the ball into him is poor. Maybe that’s the simple difference between our striker scoring for Sweden and Arsenal is that his fellow countrymen know his game better than his club teammates. It happens in football though, many times too. Didn’t Bendtner, Pepe, Podolski and Lacazette fair better on international duty than they did for Arsenal and I’m sure they are not the only ones. I still maintain that if his teammates can find him with a pass more often, he’ll score goals.

Which takes me onto the second comment above, scoring goals. I’m firmly in the Arteta camp here because set-piece or not, a goal is just that, a goal. Penalties, free kicks, corners, open play, why does anyone really care how the ball crosses the goal line? It’s a debate which bores me to tears. But I think we’ve looked better in attack so far this season but yes, we need to score more goals. Many more goals considering the number of chances we create.

Not always is a solution to be found from the outside, ie, sign a different or “better” player to do the job because if you look at the players we do have, they know where the back of the net is because they prove it when on duty for their respective countries. Premier League football is tougher though and it’s different. There’s often less space in attack that’s for sure but as much as it’s up to our forward players to find space in front of goal, it’s down to them to  find their teammate too. Easier said than done I’m sure…

Catch up later.