Team Focus: Are Arsenal & United Still a Striker Short of a Title Challenge?

For all the easy headlines generated from his answer, Louis van Gaal didn’t really get into what would have been a complex enough discussion. The Manchester United manager was last week explicitly asked whether you now specifically need a 25-goal striker to win the league.

Van Gaal responded in rather typical Van Gaal fashion.

“Not only [Wayne] Rooney has to score, but other players have to score and we concede less.”

It’s not exactly a clear answer to the question, but then it’s not exactly a clear issue. The reality is probably as Van Gaal suggested, that any good team that is sufficiently balanced has a fine chance to challenge, but there is increasing evidence that a free-scoring forward has become hugely important to actually winning.

Since 2009, every single champion has had at least one striker hitting a rate of 0.68 goals per start, and at least one player hitting 20 goals. We’re now a long way away from the days in 2004/05 when Didier Drogba could score just 10 times and the rest of the Chelsea team would do enough of the other work around him. That just seems unlikely in the modern game, as Chelsea themselves found out to their cost in some hugely attritional games towards the end of the 2013/14 season. United and Arsenal may continue to find it to their cost this season, if they cannot address the issue in the way Jose Mourinho did with Diego Costa.

It makes sense. Given how the accumulation of wealth at the top end of the game has created an effective arms race between the super-clubs, it is little wonder that the top strikers have become the key weapon. They’ll always give you that out-ball, that sense of security that they’ll convert that sudden opportunity. Some fundamental truths of the game will always remain, regardless of how it changes or evolves.

It’s also easy to see what both Van Gaal and Arsene Wenger truly believe about this from their actions, if not necessarily their words. United are clearly looking for a top forward, while that has been the case for Arsenal since Robin van Persie left, as was indicated by the controversial pursuit of Luis Suarez as far back as 2013.

Then there’s the interest both clubs have in Karim Benzema, but that in itself only indicates what a quandary this entire issue is. In this regard, it’s suddenly easier to have more sympathy for Wenger’s long-used excuse that, if he is to buy someone, it must be an obvious improvement. There is not, however, all that much out there.

When you look across the list of the most productive forwards in Europe last season - in terms of goals, conversion rates and shot accuracy - one thing quickly becomes apparent. The lists are dominated by either the unbuyable or the unproven.

On one side, you have the obvious super-forwards already at the super-clubs, as those teams continue to gather up all elite talent: Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi hitting over 48 goals, Diego Costa offering a conversion rate of 26.3% in the Premier League, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

On the other, there are those who have suddenly come to prominence at lower-profile teams, but still without the longer-term form that proves it is there to stay. Bas Dost of Wolfsburg leads both the conversion rate and shot accuracy rankings from the major leagues with respective returns of 37.2% and 62.7%, while Eintracht Frankfurt’s Alexander Meier has shown his eye for goal is itself something to watch. It would seem a little premature for a high-profile side to go straight to Dost, given his low rate of scoring the previous two seasons and the limited appearances last term.

The problem is that the market has ensured there is not much in between, very few players are clearly ready to make that key step up, or prepared to move across. That band is thin, perhaps only consisting of Antonie Griezmann (shot accuracy 48.7%), Benzema (conversion rate 21.7%), Edinson Cavani (shot accuracy 52.2%) and, to a lesser extent, Lyon's Alexandre Lacazette (conversion rate 28.1%).

Even they are merely lighter versions of the same extremes given all present issues. Real Madrid still seem highly unlikely to let Benzema go, while Atletico Madrid have probably sold their quota of stars this summer to even consider the exit of Griezmann. Beyond that, Cavani is still slightly unconvincing given his amount of big misses in key games, while Lacazette is still just 24.

Either way, it seems it’s going to take Van Gaal and Wenger a big price or a big gamble to try and begin solving this striking issue. It's certainly not going to be easy.

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