flobaba wrote:
This guy. It’s like playing with half a complete striker.
I know. We are doing well, and he contributes greatly with his hard work and closing down and nuisance factor, but I need my striker to score goals. I’m old school like that.
If you look at the goal we scored to break the deadlock. Jesus collected the ball outside the box, and carved Wolves stubborn backline with a creative pass for our two 8's to combine ahead of him. He was deeper than both our CAM's in that phase and the goal doesn't happen without him dropping deep.
It's clear as hell the role of the 9 in this team is to facilitate the advances of the wide players and the central midfielders, whilst offering some goal threat. His role is not to be the main goal scorer of the team in which case the only thing that would matter is his goal return. And if that were the case, he'd spend most of the time inside the box, whilst the rest of the players aimed to serve him but that just isn't what we're seeing. He's serving the team, rather than the team serving him.
He's a false 9 and not a true 9. He's the single biggest reason why we're challenging and sets the tone from the front. Partey/Xhaka and Gabriel/Saliba are just as important but this guy has been transformative.
If he was scoring 30 goals in addition to everything else he offers to the team, he'd be Ballon d'Or winning talent playing for Real Madrid and wouldn't be an Arsenal player.
