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Getty ImagesNo team has ever won the Premier League title without having a player in the top 10 goal scorers, but could Arsenal change that?
The Gunners are having an excellent season with only two defeats in all competitions, boasting a 100% record in the Champions League, while they are six points clear at the top of the Premier League.
Mikel Arteta’s side are also in the semi-final of the Carabao Cup and have progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Those stats are even more impressive when taking into account Arsenal are doing it all without a free-scoring forward.
While only Manchester City have scored more than Arsenal‘s 40 league goals this season, Arsenal have not had a regular scorer to rely on.
Erling Haaland has already netted 20 league goals this season, while Arsenal‘s top scorers in the division are Leandro Trossard and Viktor Gyokeres – who sit 21st in the goalscoring rankings with five goals each.
Arsenal spent £64m on Gyokeres in the summer but the Swedish international has struggled to replicate the form he showed playing for Sporting in Portugal, where he scored 97 goals in 102 games.
It has been disappointing for the 27-year-old whose recent performances have looked like he is severely lacking confidence. In Arsenal‘s last league game against Liverpool, the forward only had eight touches and failed to take a shot, while he has scored just once from open play in the last 15 games.
The Gunners have not won the league since 2004 but are many people’s favourites to lift the title – and if they manage to do it, it will be their first piece of silverware since 2020 when they won the FA Cup in Arteta’s first season in charge.
Could things change by the end of the season?
Getty ImagesThe options Arteta has in attack have changed with the return of Kai Havertz.
The German international has missed the best part of a year’s worth of football with a lengthy hamstring and knee injury, but returned for the first time since the opening day of the season when he played the final 21 minutes of the 4-1 FA Cup win over Portsmouth on Sunday.
“The last few minutes, I was just watching him move and his awareness, the way he needs to move, when he needs to move in relation to where he moves, it’s just a joy to watch,” Arteta told TNT Sports at Fratton Park.
“We’ve missed him big time; he’s back with us, and now we need to maintain him on the field because he’s a very important player for us.”
It’s the biggest indicator that Havertz could become the starting striker for Arsenal as soon as he is fit.
Gabriel Jesus, who returned from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in December, has shown flashes of his quality, and means that Arteta now has three strikers to choose from after having to rely solely on Gyokeres.
Is it an issue if Arsenal don’t have a regular scorer?
The lowest ever goal scorer from a Premier League-winning side is Frank Lampard with 13 when Chelsea lifted the trophy in the 2004-05 campaign. That was matched by Ilkay Gundogan in Manchester City‘s 2020-21 title-winning season.
When Arteta was asked about that statistic before Arsenal‘s last Premier League match against Liverpool, the Gunners boss said: “We want the goals to spread and our strikers scoring over 20 goals, that’s the idea.”
The Gunners are spreading out the goals and have had 13 different top-flight goal scorers this season, with only Brighton having more (15).
Arteta was also asked about Gyokeres not scoring from open play in 10 matches but the Gunners manager made it clear that the team winning is the priority.
“I’m probably better not to talk too much,” he added. “Those players and the quality that they have around them, then they can go and score 10 games in a row.
“The good thing is that the team is performing really well and winning matches and that’s what we need.”
Teams have won the league without a 20-goal striker
There could be comparisons drawn with the Chelsea side that won the title in 2005 to the current Arsenal team.
Jose Mourinho had a great defence that season with John Terry, Riccardo Carvalho, WIlliam Gallas and Paulo Ferreira playing the majority of games in a backline that only conceded 15 goals throughout the Premier League campaign.
The Gunners have conceded 14 goals in 21 league games – fewer than any other side – and that’s having to contend with injuries to key defenders Gabriel Magalhaes, William Saliba and Riccardo Calafiori this season.
Although his performances have been disappointing, Arsenal have still only lost once when Gyokeres has started a match.
Manchester City, when they won the title in the 2020-21, also had their goals spread with Gundogan scoring 13 goals, Sterling 10 and Phil Foden, Gabriel Jesus and Riyad Mahrez all scoring nine times that season.
With 17 league games left, Trossard and Gyokeres would have to score at a ratio of around a goal every two games to reach 13 goals, which seems unlikely given their current scoring rate.
The Gunners have consistently looked like the best all-round team this season with opposition managers saying that they do not have a weakness.
Arsenal are also the league’s best side from set-pieces and have scored 17 goals from corners in all competitions this season – the most by any Premier League team, which gives them an added threat and takes away the dependency on having one top level goal scorer.
After three successive second-placed finishes and a six-point gap at the top of the league, even without a goal scorer, the Gunners are ready to take the next step and become winners.
Additional data collected by BBC Sport’s Chris Collinson
