At last... misfiring Gunners address their big weakness

Viktor Gyokeres represents an obvious fix for an alarming problem caused by Mikel Arteta's attacking options last term

- RICHARD JOLLY SENIOR FOOTBALL CORRESPONDENT

Arsenal’s history could have been very different without Harry Woods. Without him, there may have been no Herbert Chapman, no trio of league titles in the 1930s, no status as London’s biggest club.

Arsenal narrowly avoided relegation in 1923/24. They only won 12 league games that season. Woods scored in six of them. He was Arsenal’s top scorer.

He also got a mere nine league goals. Which had a renewed pertinence more than a century later when Kai Havertz emulated him: for the first time in 101 years, Arsenal had no player in double figures for league goals.

Sporting CP did not have a similar problem. Viktor Gyokeres, who has been pushing for a move to the Emirates, hit 39 league goals at an average of one every 72 minutes. That was one more than Arsenal’s top five scorers - Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka - got between them.

A different club in a different league makes for an inexact comparison. Injuries to first Martin Odegaard and then Saka affected Arsenal’s supply line. But for three months on the sidelines, Havertz would probably have ended with around 14 league goals and more than 20 in all competitions.