Who is Arsenal’s ‘hot’ player in form at the moment? – Crazy people from the suburbs

I didn’t watch the Villa-United game yesterday, but I suspected Villa could win it and when you look at this winning streak you have to say ‘that’s right’ to these players and Unai. Morgan Rogers is in the form of his life for Villa and it is propelling them forward as we speak. Then, on the other side of Manchester, away from a fairly average United team, City also have Haaland in the form of his life, as well as Foden. These players are the ones who are enjoying a red-hot streak of form and success and that makes this title race as close as it currently is. But due to the form of these players, we are naturally looking over my shoulder and today, what concerns me at the moment is:

Who is our most in-form player at the moment?

I’m not sure we have one. You could say Declan Rice has been incredible and yes, he’s certainly put in some commanding performances at the heart of our midfield, but I’m not sure I’d describe him as being in ‘hot’ form, would you?

Maybe there’s a positive point of view about it, because it’s just that Rice has been so brilliant, so consistent, all season, that you don’t think his form is that incredible – he’s just always incredible and on Saturday night I think there’s a big argument to be made that he was our best player and the best on the pitch. He exudes class and the way I watch him glide through matches is phenomenal. I love watching him pick up the ball, turn one way, then the other, then move away from the players as we move up the field. Seeing him galloping is just brilliant and I think Gary Neville is probably right when he says ‘if they lose Rice they could be in trouble’.

However, why is no one saying this about Haaland or Rogers? Is it because Haaland almost never seems to get injured? He plays almost all the time and is almost always available. But so does (and I can assure you I’m knocking on wood writing this) Declan Rice, most of the time. He has missed a few spells, but so far he has not been out of the Arsenal squad for an extended period. I just took a look at Morgan Rogers’ injury report and guess what? He is also almost never injured, having missed 27 days and three matches for Villa two seasons in 2023/24. It seems these current players also have that ability to stay in shape in their locker.

I think what this also highlights, and is probably symptomatic of our season, is that our “red streak” player is not the type to score goals from the top of the field. Rice has two goals and six assists so far, which is a decent return, but I think we’ll probably need to see one of our forwards put together some sort of ‘streak’ in the coming weeks. I think if you were to ask any Arsenal fan who is most likely to be, we would all name Bukayo Saka, who so far this season has seven goals and four assists in all competitions. He’s missed 26 days and six games for us, which, given his consistent form throughout his Arsenal career so far, makes it seem like he’d have a better G+A total if he was fit for those games, but as we reach the halfway point of the season, I’d be lying if I were to tell you I thought he’d be on those numbers and not much more. He is our Star Boyhe’s the one we often look to for the end product and he’s the one who last season scored another 12 goals and 14 assists while also missing 25 games in all competitions for Arsenal and England. If you do the ratios and extrapolate what those extra 25 games would have given us over the course of a season if he had stayed fit, the numbers suggest he would have been on track for 20 goals and 24 assists last season. This season, he has just under 20 goals and 11 assists if he crosses the 60 game mark. We’re halfway through and he’s played 22 so far, which suggests he probably won’t make it, but if we dig deeper into multiple competitions he could get closer to 50.

What do all these numbers tell me? I think that suggests that even Saka, for all of his final product and what he’s done so far, is probably a little behind where we were hoping for this season. And that probably rings true when you think about the fact that we haven’t put teams aside much. We have become a low scoring team in a low scoring sport and Saturday night was another example of that. We had chances to double our lead, but we didn’t really take them.

Is this a cause for concern? Maybe. I don’t think our offense has been great this season and part of that might be due to the bright new striker who doesn’t play like any previous strikers we’ve had. But I also think we need more from our attackers as well. We haven’t seen enough of him unlocking teams and the only one who has continued his good form throughout this season is Trossard. But we need others now. It’s that time of the season where I need to see more of Martinelli, more of Madueke, more of Eze and more of Saka too as I mentioned.

There’s no need to panic as we’re leading the league, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all voice issues if we feel them. We have the time, we have the quality of the players, we have the manager who has shown his ability to solve these puzzles. And this work must begin as soon as possible.

I think I’ll leave it there for today. Arteta will have his press conference today in front of Palace tomorrow evening, so I will go through and preview that at this time tomorrow. I’ll catch you then.