Arsenal transfer news: with one slot in particular needing attention, the Gunners are focusing on improving in January.

Mikel Arteta has shown why Arsenal are well prepared for the upcoming January transfer window (Image: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)

With a message of defense and consistency so strong that a single attempt on goal is considered an offense, Manchester City has demonstrated that they are still capable of winning.

For the first time this season, Mikel Arteta made the decision to fully utilize his attacking capabilities. He performed it on opponents who weren’t expecting it. Lens, poor Lens.

The squad selected included three legitimate defenders, and that may be overstating things given that one of the three was Takehiro Tomiyasu, who finished the game with two assists as a right-back. Declan Rice can’t really be categorized as a defender because of how effective his passing and driving runs are, but Oleksandr Zinchenko is a defender in the broadest sense of the word.

What was really striking was that Arsenal chose five legitimate attackers even when they were using 3-2-5 formations. Gabriel Jesus was the striker and the two midfield No. 8s were both No. 10s. Together, the two wingers scored at least 14 goals in the league alone the previous season. Initially, it might not come as a surprise that the Gunners scored goal after goal.

Complete dominance, six different scorers—five in the first half—and a message to anyone who had doubts about Arteta and his team. Martin Odegaard proposed that the team benefited from the openness of European competition. That makes sense, and Lens was indeed awful, but this was one of the best offensive performances ever, with a merciless clinical edge.

Remember, goalscoring was supposed to be the problem here. After 13 games, five teams have scored more goals than the Gunners, including five against Sheffield United. The xG performs much worse, ranking sixth overall despite a significant improvement thus far.

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The fact that only five teams have so far outperformed the Gunners in terms of xG suggests that things simply cannot continue at this level, even with Havertz and Jesus, two habitual underachievers. But if Arteta can consistently get his team to play this aggressively, it will completely change the game plan for the next five weeks.

They were able to maintain their title push last year thanks to a collaborative effort that saw four players score ten goals or more—two of them scoring fifteen, and Saka scoring fourteen. Granit Xhaka contributed seven goals and a crucial seven assists even from midfield, compared to Eddie Nketiah, the backup striker, who only managed four.

Nketiah played less than 1,100 minutes and appeared in 30 games, so his small role is a testament to the team’s cohesiveness. It wasn’t a lack of goals that ultimately cost the team the title toward the end of the season when they tailed off; rather, it was a result of poor defensive play.

Arteta has chosen control over chaos in part because of this, but if Arsenal can capitalize on some of the explosive attacking play, January might just turn out differently. They are already on pace to have three players finish in the top four in the league this term, and if individual play improves, that number could rise to four.

Arsenal continues to share the goals, unlike Manchester City, who only had two players with ten or more, Erling Haaland being one of them with 36. Once more, it’s Haaland and a supporting group at City.

This presents an interesting conundrum for Stan, Josh, Arteta, and Edu Gaspar. Given Gabriel Martinelli’s lack of success at home and Jesus’ ongoing fitness issues, the Gunners have long been linked to a winter move for an all-out No. 9.

There’s a perception that the club will be sniffing around, if not going the Chelsea route and bidding, bidding, bidding—whether it’s Ivan Toney or Victor Osimhen.

Given the demands of the Champions League knockout stage and the physical and psychological toll that a title run-in can take, Arteta might be considering his options in the winter transfer window in order to add to his roster. This would allow him to have four players—plus Trossard and Martinelli, who were occasionally used there last year—play center forward, which is probably one too many.

Questions about this will persist based on Kai Havertz’s likely future and his continued role in the team. With Jesus always a flight risk and Nketiah far from proven against the top six, Arteta really only has two players plus possible January reinforcement if he isn’t a long- or even short-term option as a striker. It’s a balancing act.

While Arteta and his team have demonstrated their ability to collaborate in an ideal setting, this is the first time this term that things have quite clicked in that way. It isn’t a deal that the club will take lightly, given that Toney, the most likely arrival, would cost more than the entire January spend from the previous year. Reports suggest that £65 million ($82 million) will be enough, but Brentford continues to quote closer to £100 million ($124 million).

But if the five-man attacking dynamic isn’t sustainable or can’t be replicated at home, Arteta will have to look outside the team for a point-of-distinction player—someone who can win games when they shouldn’t be won or when their performance doesn’t justify it.

Over the past 12 months, Arsenal has increasingly demonstrated their ability to steal points from this kind of match; however, with Liverpool and Manchester City now vying for championship glory in May, the stakes are higher and the margins are closer. The season may well depend on whether Arsenal shapes this with a single player or chooses to go with the same but better and more seasoned player from the previous campaign. In any case, Arteta has demonstrated what happens when he increases the heat.