Qwiss much more. Saka is actually performing to the same level as Salah this season, if not higher, when you consider their respective roles in the team (that's not to say Saka was good against Fulham).
If you look at this comparison matrix:
https://www.squawka.com/en/comparison-matrix/?compare=GLyKSzd33JoN6eCTvcXLo
And then compare that with their season heatmaps:
https://www.sofascore.com/player/bukayo-saka/934235
https://www.sofascore.com/player/mohamed-salah/159665
You can see that both are slightly underperforming their xG, but Salah spends less time in his own half and more time on the penalty spot. Saka is better all around, and even shoots more accurately albeit with a lower conversion rate.
Adding Martinelli to the mix, and you start to see some real problems:
https://www.squawka.com/en/comparison-matrix/?compare=fjgCNU0_qh1JEy5lLMzyq
Added to that, his heatmap shows he gets on the ball further forward more often than Saka, and maybe even more than Salah:
https://www.sofascore.com/player/gabriel-martinelli/922573
His conversion rate is appalling. He's taking players on, beating them, and doing very little with it. He seems the best passer of the three, but it's low volume and mostly sideways and backwards. His crossing is the only place he looks decent against the other two, but his chances created suggest they aren't productive crosses and that he's crossing to non-scoring players (i.e. Jesus, etc.). The latter isn't necessarily his fault, but it does show why a goal-scoring striker could unlock another level, both in Martinelli as an individual and the team as a whole.
The question for me is, what are these guys supposed to be doing? Jesus is a self-proclaimed non-scoring forward, Saka is all all-rounder and responsible for a lot of holdup play, and the only thing Martinelli is doing right is beating his man and getting a cross in....to nobody. One of these guys has to be a goal-scorer, and Martinelli's position is the best candidate without a signing. He just isn't producing. He gets on the ball higher up the pitch than people are making out. Long story short, Martinelli isn't passing the eye test or the stats test in terms of his overall game. He seems one-dimensional and the numbers bear that out. I believe he has so much more to offer, but I just don't agree that his relatively poor performance this season is someone else's fault.
That being said, I am of the suspicion that Arteta initially instructed our forwards to focus on retaining possession high in the opponents half, with the idea that we could take the handbrake off at will. That really only happened in Europe, and we've been unable to shift gears in the PL. Maybe it was a mistake, but maybe it was necessary...its hard to analyze without really knowing what the actual instructions were. What seems clear to me is that we need at least one highly productive forward, and Saka being so much of an all-rounder with Jesus being Jesus means that Martinelli should have taken up that responsibility based on last season, where he plays on the pitch, and the players around/behind him. When 2 of your front 3 just aren't really a threat, it's easy to defend. Being more of a threat has knock-on effects, as well. When you force players to address you, it opens space for the likes of Havertz and Saka to get better, more clear cut goal-scoring opportunities. Players have roles, and whatever role Martinelli is playing, it doesn't help us much. Havertz and Jesus playing half a role isn't great either, but I'm not sure Martinelli is even managing that.
