Arsenal vs Southampton: Pin the tail on the right striker

Arsenal will likely see a rotated attack against Southampton, swapping out strikers again to see who can finally figure out how to score a goal.

In case you haven’t noticed, Arsenal yet again can’t score goals. And the worst part is they are coming up with new ways to not score goals. Against Manchester City, it was a show of futility, as they didn’t score goals by managing zero shots on target.

Whereas against Brighton, the Gunners fired off all kinds of shot, many of which were on target, and they still only managed the single goal that proved inadequate to stave off the ragin’ blues of Brighton.

With just that one goal from Nicolas Pepe, it, therefore, goes without saying that not striker has scored a goal for Arsenal since the restart. And it’s not like Arteta isn’t trying new combinations to try to find the best.

While he began the restart with Eddie Nketiah up top, he switched to Alexandre Lacazette against Brighton. And while neither of the two has been at fault for the team’s failures, they have not scored a goal between them.

Which means that, with Southampton coming up next, it’s very likely that the carousel keeps turning and puts Nketiah back up top instead of Lacazette. As I’ve said numerous times since the restart, both Nketiah and Lacazette look up to the role, which plays in Nketiah’s favor, it’s just a matter of seeing who can nose the other one out.

Before the restart, Nketiah had nosed out Lacazette, despite scoring just one goal to Lacazette’s more. But with so little set in stone since that restart, it’s pretty much every position up in the air, and that includes striker.

I hate to simplify this to “who can score a goal first,” but honestly, that’s what it might come down to. As long as neither striker is scoring goals, they will likely continue to circulate between the two of them. And once we see that first goal hit the back of the net, it may break the chain. Honestly, it’s not the worst plan. Arteta has been rotating a lot and with Pepe being the first goal scored, it’s highly likely that we see him be the first guy to earn his spot by breaking what looked like the starts of regular rotation at another position.

It’ll be interesting, whatever happens. I don’t care who wins as long as we win.