Gunner89
It's definitely a set-up thing. When people were advocating for a goalscorer who could gobble up the opportunities Xhaka had last season, they were misjudging what it was that made the left side work. People will say, well we wanted someone other than Havertz, but the problem is that a goalscoring midfielder of any name would have manifested the same issues.
The appetite goal seeking players have generally leads to moving long rather than short, going into goal scoring positions rather than supporting the build-up, wanting to be fed rather than being the feeder. That's fine if you want that from your LCM, but that has consequences for the position closest to it, LFW. They can't both go long because one has to facilitate the other's forward movement and exploit the run by coming short to make the pass. All too often this season, we've seen Martinelli come short whilst Havertz goes long. It would have been no different if we had peak Ramsey in the position because he would be making the same forward runs taking the space that Martinelli thrives on.
Goals were absolutely the wrong thing to want from the LCM position, because we already had a spear tip in Martinelli who could play high and finish moves off. We needed to replace Xhaka's passing game and not his shooting game, which is what most wanted and turns out so did Arteta. We need to revert the relationship with a LCM who has a strong passing game to feed Martinelli and goals should be an after thought.
