Can Arsenal’s failing Premier League title bid ignite a Champions League charge?

Arsenal need a striker. There’s no disguising that fact. And as the Gunners’ title charge limply fizzles, it’s difficult to imagine them ending their 21-year wait for a Premier League crown until an elite centre-forward is acquired.

But their lack of a striker is not the only issue hamstringing Arsenal’s ambitions this season. And the two other major shortcomings in Mikel Arteta’s squad cannot be easily remedied with a swift splurge in the transfer market.

Collecting just one point from their last two league games, Arsenal are now distant second behind champions-elect Liverpool, priced at 25/1 with BetMGM to pull off an unlikely title-race turnaround.

Their title race might be run, but Arsenal’s season is not over – they face PSV in the last 16 of the Champions League this week, a competition they are priced at 6/1 to win with Betway, and they are 1/12 with Matchbook to secure a top-four Premier League finish.

Arsenal’s striker-less flaws were on full display in those two critical games – a 1-0 loss at home to West Ham followed by a goalless draw away to Nottingham Forest.

Firstly, in the costly West Ham reverse, there was the issue of indiscipline. Teenage left-back Myles Lewis-Skelly was shown a straight red card for hauling down Mohammed Kudus near the halfway line when the Hammers forward was poised to run through on goal.

It was the Gunners’ fifth sending off of the campaign. No other team in the English top flight has seen red more than three times. It was also the 20th red card of Arteta’s tenure – another unwanted league high in that period.

Some of those have been harsh – such as Declan Rice’s second yellow for kicking (read: gently nudging) the ball away against Brighton earlier in the season; and Lewis-Skelly had a three-game ban overturned for a red he was shown at Wolves in January.

But many have been the result of a lack of discipline. Lewis-Skelly’s dismissal against West Ham was a prime example: it stemmed from the Gunners’ own sloppiness in possession, with the young defender carelessly losing the ball in midfield before making the red-worthy foul.

Even accounting for having to play with a one-man deficit for the final 17 minutes, though, this was still a game Arsenal ought to have won. The reason they didn’t was their other vital non-forward-related fallibility – a stark lack of ruthlessness.

Arsenal attempted 20 shots to their opponents’ five at the Emirates Stadium that afternoon. 

The problem wasn’t that the north Londoners lacked a top-quality striker to dispatch the chances they were creating; it was that the openings they mustered were not of sufficient quality to hurt the Hammers. 

Arteta’s side managed only two shots on target, and their total expected goals (xG) for the game was just 1.22 and this metric can often be a good indicator of identifying successful football bets can be xG.

West Ham’s xG was 1.07. The disparity between the two teams in terms of control and territory (Arsenal enjoyed a 68% share of possession) was not reflected in the respective level of goal threat they were each able to generate.

Arsenal’s passivity, their failure to meaningfully penetrate opposing defences, was on show again at Forest. Needing a win to resuscitate their title charge, they landed just one shot on target while generating an xG total of 0.99, despite having 65% possession.

But it’ll take more than a shiny new striker if they are to bag a first title since the days of Arsene Wenger and the Invincibles any time soon.

Odds correct at the time of writing.