Arsenal: 3 areas Eddie Nketiah has to improve to aid top four push

Arsenal have been staring down the barrel of a striker issue for longer than just the January transfer window. It’s been bubbling in the background and has now reached boiling point.

There is no two ways about it: it’s a mess.

Boasting a fine chance of returning to the Champions League via the top four positions this season, Arsenal have left themselves with two strikers to see them through the final 17 matches of the Premier League season.

Two strikers who have scored a combined two goals from open play this campaign. After going through all five matches in January with just one goal scored across the whole team, that figure becomes even more alarming.

Arsenal: 3 areas Eddie Nketiah has to improve to help Mikel Arteta’s side secure a top four finish in the Premier League this season

But that is what the club have left themselves with. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was allowed to leave Arsenal on a free transfer to Barcelona, a move that simply had to happen. The relationship between all parties was too fractured and there was no chance of reintegration where the striker would be anything other than a shadow of his former self. He already was.

Equally, not signing anyone with even a modicum of goalscoring pedigree has left Arsenal dicing with their hopes of returning among Europe’s elite.

As much as we’d like Alexandre Lacazette to complete the 90 minutes each week between now and May, his increasingly deteriorating fitness levels ensure that Nketiah will be called upon, likely off the bench, on more than one occasion.

That is concerning, because he has not, at any point, looked like ‘the answer’.

These are the cards Arsenal have dealt themselves though, and in a bid to reach the promised land, Nketiah will have to improve aspects of his game to keep the Gunners’ chances alive.

1. Nketiah Has to Show Greater Composure

As with all areas of his game that need improving, the chances of Arsenal seeing that between now and the end of the season with Nketiah already planning his next move become slimmer.

But if he is to attract the calibre of club he hopes to play for in the summer then he has to begin showing composure in high pressure situations. All he’s come up with the goods in this season as been the Carabao Cup. That is not enough.

Such performances cloud judgement, and then as soon as the level of opposition increases he reverts to form and fluffs his lines. That miss at Goodison Park is a fine example. Were that Sunderland at home in front of his own fans he would have had the net rippling.

Given he is more likely to be coming off the benches in matches either to chase a goal or just give Lacazette a breather, he will not have the time to settle into matches. Footballers playing at this level have to show greater focus and composure at all moments of matches if they wish to succeed. Nketiah has not delivered that on the bigger stages.

Under pressure he crumbles. He will never forge the career he’s desperate for away from north London unless he fixes that.

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