Arsenal must rue losing “goal machine” who’s like Marmoush

This season has felt like a real slog for Arsenal.

Mikel Arteta’s side have had to deal with a drop in form, questionable officiating, and a mountain of injuries, which have eviscerated their frontline.

Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz are all out injured, with the last two not set to return until next season, which makes the decision not to sign anyone last month look utterly absurd.

Following the loss of Havertz earlier this month, we reckon the manager would love to have one of his former forward options back in the squad, especially as he’s won comparisons to Manchester City’s new addition, Omar Marmoush.

Havertz’s pre-injury form

It would be fair to say that Havertz is a centre-forward who divides opinion.

After all, the former Chelsea ace was initially signed as a midfielder to replace Granit Xhaka in the summer of 2023.

However, while the criticisms of his finishing ability certainly hold true, as evidenced by Understat revealing he’s underperformed his expected goals by 2.76 this season, he’s been more effective than people have perhaps given him credit for this year.

For example, in 34 appearances before his injury, totalling 2776 minutes, the 25-year-old “monster,” as dubbed by writer Jake Entwistle, managed to rack up a pretty decent haul of 15 goals and five assists.

That means the Aachen-born forward was averaging a goal involvement every 1.7 games, or every 138.8 minutes, which not only makes him the Gunners’ top scorer this year but also demonstrates why his absence from the starting lineup for the rest of the campaign is such a significant concern.

It’s a problem that Arteta will have to find a solution for as soon as possible, and while he likely will, we can’t help thinking about how useful it’d be to have one of his former stars back in the team, especially as they’ve won comparisons to Marmoush of all people this year.

The former Arsenal star compared to Marmoush

Arsenal have had some brilliant strikers play for them in recent history, such as Olivier Giroud and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but perhaps one of their most underrated number nines in the modern era was Alexandre Lacazette.

The French poacher joined the Gunners in the window before Aubameyang arrived, so his efforts in attack were often, understandably, underappreciated, as while he could be profligate and even sluggish at times, the Lyon-born star had a pretty decent record.

When he left the Emirates for free in the summer of 2023, the 33-year-old did so with 71 goals and 32 assists to his name in 206 appearances, which comes out to an average of a goal involvement every other game, and considering he’s since racked up a haul of 63 goals and 12 assists in 103 appearances for Lyon, it would be fair to say he would’ve been the ideal solution to Havertz’s recent injury.

On top of his raw output, the French “goal machine,” as former teammate Sokratis described him, has been likened to one of the most exciting players in Europe this season: Marmoush.

The comparison stems from FBref, which compares players in similar positions in Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League and Europa League, then creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each one, and in this instance, has concluded that the Egyptian is the second most similar forward to the Lyon star.

The best way to see where this comparison has come from is to look at the underlying metrics in which the pair rank closely, including, but not limited to, progressive passes received, penalty kicks, goals per shot, expected assists, passing accuracy, passes into the final third and more, all per 90.

Ultimately, there can be no doubt over the fact that following Havertz’s injury, Arsenal are in the midst of a crisis in attack, and while moving Lacazette on over two years ago was probably the right move, we can’t help but imagine Arteta would be feeling much better about the situation with him in his squad.

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