For all the similarities between this season’s two Premier League title contenders, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, there’s one obvious difference. It’s a philosophical debate as much as a purely tactical one: does adding one record-breaking individual to your attack actually improve the side overall, or does his brilliance come at the expense of others?
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The narrative about Erling Haaland is now into its third stage. Initially, he had adapted sensationally and was firing City to a third straight title. Then he was dominating the side too much and City’s overall game plan was suffering. Now, with City on course for the title, everything is seemingly working perfectly again.
But the more interesting situation is at Arsenal, whose purchase of a Manchester City cast-off transformed the nature of their attack. Gabriel Jesus’ early season brilliance was about more than scoring goals, but his goal against Chelsea on Tuesday night was notable in trivia terms. He became the fourth Arsenal player to reach double figures in this Premier League campaign, which would have been achieved much quicker had Jesus not been sidelined for three months through injury.
Arsenal’s attacking quartet have shared the goals around very nicely. They have four of the top 17 Premier League goalscorers this season: Gabriel Martinelli has netted 15, Martin Odegaard 14, Bukayo Saka 13, and now Jesus is onto 10. In contrast, City only have Haaland in double figures — although he’s now on a record-equalling 34 and might yet end up scoring the equivalent of four different players notching 10 apiece.
Arsenal have become only the eighth side to get four players into double figures in the Premier League era, but the more interesting thing about these cases is when they occurred.
It happened just once in the first 17 seasons of the Premier League, when Eric Cantona, Andy Cole, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes did so in Manchester United’s title-winning campaign of 1995-96. Even this owed much to Cantona’s suspension at the start of the season for kicking a supporter at Selhurst Park. Scholes started the campaign in Cantona’s second-striker role and his goals in that period meant he ended the season with 10 goals. In other words, it wasn’t quite a front four working harmoniously, more a couple of players job-sharing up front.
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But, after once in 17 years, it’s now happened seven times in the past 14 years, which demonstrates the shift away from the accepted model in the 1990s and 2000s (the midfielders create, the strikers bang in the goals), to the model of the 2010s and 2020s (various attackers are tasked with both creativity and goalscoring). The shift from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 is, of course, closely linked.
Neatly, the eight occasions of four players reaching double figures have been recorded twice apiece by Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United.
Chelsea did it back-to-back in Carlo Ancelotti’s two seasons in charge, 2009-10 and 2010-11. The trio of Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda and Frank Lampard were joined on double figures by Nicolas Anelka in the first season and Salomon Kalou in the second.
In the title-winning campaign of 2009-10, both Drogba and Lampard broke the 20-goal mark (although it’s worth pointing out that 10 of Lampard’s goals were penalties). The following season, Malouda surprisingly top-scored with just 13 goals as Chelsea’s season was derailed by the arrival of Fernando Torres.
Arsenal were the next to do so, in 2012-13. This was another interesting situation in terms of the “one dedicated goalscorer versus multiple goalscorers” debate because the previous season they had relied almost solely on Robin van Persie, who had hit 30 goals. The next most prolific player was Theo Walcott, on just eight.
But after Van Persie’s departure, Walcott led the goalscoring with 14 as newcomers Santi Cazorla, Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud managed 12, 11 and 11. This was Arsene Wenger’s regular front four in a 4-2-3-1 system and, overall, they scored two fewer goals than when Van Persie was banging them in, although won three extra points.
Pep Guardiola’s City have achieved this feat twice. First, in the 2017-18 title-winning campaign, with Sergio Aguero scoring 21 goals, Raheem Sterling 18, Jesus 13 and Leroy Sane 10, although they never actually played as an attacking quartet. Jesus paired Aguero in a 3-5-2 at the start of the campaign and otherwise played as a replacement for the Argentinian, or sometimes from a wide position.
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Then, two years later, City became the only side to have five players reaching double figures: Sterling (20), Aguero (16), Jesus (14), Kevin De Bruyne (13) and Riyad Mahrez (11). Arsenal won’t match that unless Granit Xhaka doubles his tally of five or Eddie Nketiah (on four) suddenly comes back into the side and goes on a goalscoring spree.
And between those City campaigns came Manchester United’s second instance of four players scoring 10 or more goals, with Paul Pogba leading the goalscoring charts on 13 ahead of the actual forwards: Romelu Lukaku on 12 and Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford on 10. The latter two would improve their tallies significantly to 17 apiece for the following campaign after Lukaku’s departure, another example of others stepping up when the main centre-forward leaves.
But Arsenal’s 2022-23 side, along with their side from a decade ago, feels like a classic example of a side achieving this feat: a genuine quartet who have generally started together throughout the campaign.
Odegaard’s evolution into a regular goalscoring midfielder is partly because he’s so adept at meeting low left-wing passes with his left foot, as he did twice against Chelsea.
Saka and Martinelli are fielded in positions where they can cut inside with their stronger foot, but they’re also capable of going down the outside and shooting.
And Jesus’ selflessness, his link play and his tendency to drift around and open up space for others has been as crucial as his own goalscoring figures. It’s notable that this feat has been recorded just eight times in the 30 seasons of the Premier League and Jesus has been involved in three of those eight.
With City seemingly unstoppable, Arsenal seem unlikely to finish the season crowned as the Premier League’s best team. But in another sense, this is the epitome of a great team: working in harmony, sharing responsibilities and maximising each others’ abilities.
(Top photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
