EPL TALK: Nice guys don’t finish first, and Mikel Arteta won’t be spared criticism for goal-less attacks

MANCHESTER City wobbled without one. Liverpool are concerned about losing one to the African Cup of Nations. Chelsea and Manchester United are both meandering without one and Tottenham Hotspur are flourishing again after rediscovering one.

A striker. A centre-forward. A conventional No.9. A leader of lines. A lump up front. Sweep up every cliché, throw the lot at the transfer window and just sign one, Arsenal. Anyone. Only a 20 goal-a-season man will do at this juncture. There’s rarely been a title lifted without one. Even Leicester City had Jamie Vardy and Manchester City always had the impudent Sergio Aguero.

But Arsenal are different. Because Arsenal are all about the process. Mikel Arteta is going to prove that nice guys finish first because he’s cerebral and thoughtful and kind to dogs, presumably. He’s not shouty like Jurgen Klopp or head-scratchy like Pep Guardiola or a bit odd like Erik ten Hag. He’s a nice man. A nice man with a pretty plan. He’s a man for all seasons that involve data analysts obsessed with expected goal stats.

But this isn’t one of those seasons, thankfully. This season is a glorious, ragged mess of contradictions, transitional squads and erratic form. Klopp called it correctly a few days ago. Coaching is less important right now than energy conservation and motivation. Just patch 'em up and get 'em out there, in any battered shape or form, and do whatever it takes to defeat Arsenal in the FA Cup at the Emirates. Leave with a scruffy victory and leave the home crowd booing.

But Arteta is all about the process. Even when the process flounders. Even when the process left Kai Havertz up front, who treated the ball in the box like a dog owner lifting a pet’s deposit from the pavement. Even when Havertz managed five shots in the first half but never really looked like scoring. Even when the goal-shy Gunners collected just one win from their past seven games in all competitions, scoring only five times along the way.

The process endures because it’s Arteta, because it’s the age of data analysis and expected goals, and Arsenal’s expected goals numbers are usually high or something, according to the number addicts.

Others focus on the familiar and the straightforward. Arsenal can’t score goals. Arsenal need a striker to score goals. But it’s almost uncouth to make such a facile observation in the age of shiny systems. There must be something deeper, smarter at fault here. Arteta hinted at a psychological block, a more befitting explanation for a more enlightened, pretentious era.

But this psychological block was hard to detect in Arsenal’s recent home defeat against West Ham, where they dominated possession, chances and shots at goal in a thoroughly one-sided London derby. They created 20 unblocked shots – and didn’t score – their highest tally without scoring since 2015. The Gunners also produced 77 touches inside the penalty area – and didn’t score – their biggest number without a goal over the past 15 seasons.

Gunners looking like oldest young team in the world

In a scrappy, erratic campaign for all trophy contenders, Arsenal continue to tiptoe across the stage in the hope of being word perfect, like an earnest amateur theatre company, as their rivals throw caution to the wind, to a degree, and fully engage with the farcical elements of this season’s pantomime.

Darwin Nunez can’t score either? Leave him on as a volatile, hairy wookie, tearing full-backs limb from limb long enough to allow Luis Díaz to nip in to settle proceedings. Harry Kane has gone? Back Richarlison to work things out. Erling Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne are still out? Let Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden have a stab at mimicking the partnership that brought home the Treble. It’s the season to play Indiana Jones. They’re all making it up as they go along and it’s proving to be terrific fun.

And then there’s Arsenal. And Arteta. And the system. The weary system. And the unshakeable belief in youthful, attacking endeavour, which is terrific on paper. On the pitch, the Gunners are looking like the oldest, young team in the world, with Declan Rice winning tackles, Martin Odegaard threading needles and Bukayo Saka sliding balls, mostly for nothing. In less than a month, it’s become a dispiriting trudge. They labour in vain and look exhausted.

Arteta laments the lack of value in the January transfer window, which has always been the case, and speaks of Arsenal’s journey, but it’s a journey destined to end in anti-climax and disappointment again. Gabriel Jesus continues to toil with an unspecified knee problem and Eddie Nketiah is only trusted to make late cameos. If Havertz really is the answer, then one can only wonder what question Arteta is asking of his squad.

He has half the injury problems currently facing Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham Hotspur, but it’s Spurs who are improvising and improving and chasing down Arsenal in fourth spot.

At Manchester United, ten Hag is a maligned manager still in search of a system, but consider the vitriol if ten Hag was reduced to playing Mason Mount up front. Arteta has a system and is reduced to playing Havertz up front. Something has gone awry.

And the final-whistle booing was a warning. Systems should be updated. Philosophies can be tweaked or jettisoned; a point Klopp alluded to again in his post-match interview. The win is all that anyone remembers, not the process or the pretty patterns, just the victory and Arsenal’s knack of squandering chances from every conceivable angle.

This madcap season is not one for purists, with whiteboard line-ups feeling less like a tactical exercise than a blindfolded attempt to pin the piñata. Whatever works will have to do for now, which may force a compromise from Arsenal’s manager. Arteta doesn’t need to sign the missing link, just a half-decent striker who doesn’t keep missing.

Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.

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