Welcome to The Radar, a Sky Sports column in which Nick Wright uses a blend of data and opinion to shed light on need-to-know Premier League stories. This week: 🔺Arsenal's striker dilemma analysed🔺Araujo helping shore up Liverpool🔺A player to watch this weekend While Alexander Isak heads into Sunday's game at Anfield having scored six goals for Liverpool this season, Arsenal's frontmen continue to misfire. Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres haven't hit a Premier League goal between them since early September.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player Havertz has been Mikel Arteta's first choice since returning from injury last season. The 27-year-old started and scored in the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain in May and appeared to pick up where he left off in the new campaign. After scoring in the Community Shield against Manchester City, Havertz added Premier League goals against Coventry and his former club Chelsea.
Since then, though, he has played 561 minutes, more than nine hours, without finding the net in any competition. Gyokeres finally broke his duck for the season in Tuesday's Carabao Cup penalty shoot-out loss to Fleetwood Town when he bundled in Arsenal's equaliser from close range. But it has been a struggle for him to even produce shots never mind goals.
Gyokeres has only mustered one shot, a header which looped harmlessly into the air against Nottingham Forest, in 148 Premier League minutes. The Sweden international hasn't registered any shots at all in his 160 minutes in the Champions League. For the most part, the lack of goals from Arsenal's strikers hasn't mattered.
They sit level on points with City at the top of the Premier League having won all but one of their eight games and have taken seven points from a possible nine in the Champions League. But Arteta will be aware of just how tough it will be to continue their strong start to the season if they don't start to produce. Nearly three months in, it is damning that Arsenal's defenders have scored more goals in all competitions than their strikers.
Sunday's meeting with Isak, a striker Arsenal coveted before his £125m move to Liverpool from Newcastle, is a reminder of what they lack. The club have built formidable resources in defence and midfield but still don't have a world-class goalscorer. It is partly a result of how funds have been allocated.
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