Stick or Twist: What Should Arsenal Do With Nketiah and Balogun?

Arsenal need to figure out what to do with their options behind first-choice striker, Gabriel Jesus.

Are they comfortable with Eddie Nketiah being his back up? Do they stick or twist with Folarin Balogun? Or do they just decide neither are quite suitable and look to dip into the transfer pool?

For all the qualities that Jesus brings – and there are a lot – finishing has never been his strong suit.

Gabriel Jesus historic underperformance compared to his xg

Jonathan Manuel / Data Analyst

Jesus has played in the Premier League for seven seasons now. Over that time, he’s accumulated a total of 83.6 expected goals. But from those chances he’s scored just 69 times. That works out as an underperformance of 14.6 goals. Since his first season at Manchester City in 2016-17, no player has underperformed their expected goals tally by a larger margin.

The work he does off the ball and his ability to elevate the game of his teammates is worth that trade off. Mikel Arteta is well aware of that.

But should Arsenal’s Plan A fail, or if they need to bring a more clinical finisher to make the most of a scrappy half-chance, they need other options.

You get the sense that Arsenal will keep one of Nketiah or Balogun, but not both, particularly as players like Leandro Trossard and Kai Havertz have both operated as false nines in the past.

So, what might they decide to do? Let’s run through the options.Option 1: Keep Eddie Nketiah

Nketiah only signed a long-term contract last year – worth a reported £100,000 per week – and although he deputised admirably for Jesus at the start of 2022, he struggled for fitness and playing time once the Brazilian returned.

Nkeitah’s underlying numbers have always been strong though. In his 1,070 Premier League minutes last season, he averaged 0.69 non-penalty xG per 90, which was more than any Arsenal player. In fact, only Erling Haaland (0.75) and Callum Wilson (0.72) averaged a higher non-penalty xG value per 90 than Nketiah’s, suggesting the Englishman frequently took up good shooting positions in his limited playing time. Comparing Jesus and Nketiah’s shooting habits from last season shows us that the latter offers slightly more goal threat.