A week to save their season: why Arsenal have to buy a striker

Monday's game against Liverpool should have been a striker's wet dream. The art of defending was being desecrated all over the pitch, with seasoned professionals finding themselves unable to execute even basic functions like clearing the ball properly or passing out from the back without playing it straight to an opponent.

So it was instructive of this Arsenal team that they still managed to draw a blank and have now failed to score five times in their past six games at Emirates Stadium - the only exception being the rout of West Brom on the final day of last season.

There is an uncharacteristic bluntness about Arsenal. Their chief centre-forward, Olivier Giroud, has one goal in his past 10 Premier League games while their most dangerous player, Alexis Sanchez, is only hitting the target with 6.5% of his shots at the moment.

Both were at fault on Monday night, Giroud offering a rather limp attempt when, slightly off balance, he meekly prodded at goal from close range and Sanchez smacking a shot against the outside of the post when he really should have beaten Simon Mignolet.

It is not a question of creating chances. Indeed, as noted by @Orbinho on Twitter, Arsenal have created the most in the league with 61 and still managed to score the joint fewest goals, with one of the two being an own goal. Rather, as Petr Cech said after bailing Arsenal out with two incredible saves, "the thing is to be more efficient and clinical in front of goal".

Arsenal have already dropped five points this campaign - all of them at home - and pre-season optimism about a title challenge will slowly but surely dissipate if their struggles in front of goal continue. The question is whether an internal solution - Wenger's favoured option - can be found or whether, in the next week, they can do something in the transfer market to guard against the kind of seasonal surrender which has blighted the past decade when it comes to their Premier League title bids.

On the internal question, Wenger's hinted-at rotation has not come to fruition with Giroud starting every league game despite Theo Walcott getting the nod twice at Wembley: in the FA Cup to close last season and the Community Shield to open this one. It's not exactly a paragon of joined-up thinking: Walcott deemed good enough to start two showpiece events but not against West Ham, Crystal Palace or Liverpool.

In any case, Walcott has never looked like a striker capable of delivering a title. He is too inconsistent with his performances and his finishing to merit anything like that kind of description.

Giroud, who should have filled his boots against Liverpool, continues to divide opinion in quite an entrenched way and while it is true that a record of 42 goals and 14 assists in 100 Premier League games is fairly acceptable (Karim Benzema has 47 goals and 34 assists in his past 100 Liga matches), Giroud just isn’t good enough to win a title. It’s not a statement that can be proved beyond doubt with data, but your eyes are far more complex instruments than calculators and can be useful too on occasion.

The other option - if Sanchez is to be kept away from the No. 9 position, a possible solution that Wenger seems reluctant to try - is the injured Danny Welbeck, who has only scored four goals in 25 league appearances since joining the club last summer. So it is an eclectic group of talents that Arsenal possess, and though definitely a good set of options they are emphatically not great.

The easiest answer, though hardest to execute, is to enter the transfer market. But Arsenal have had a set-back in that regard after suffering the fate of a heartbroken 14-year-old schoolboy and being dumped on Twitter by Karim Benzema.

Rejection was made all the more painful by the fact that, as Wenger acknowledges, there are very few available centre-forwards of the requisite quality. “There’s a shortage in the world,” said Wenger last week. “It confirms what I just said, that there’s a difference between financial power nowadays and the availability of top-class players. For any deal, when you want to buy something you go to see the owner and if he doesn’t want to sell, he doesn’t want to sell. You cannot buy. In our job it is exactly like that. When the players are not free you cannot buy them because it’s the club who decides, the person who owns the contract who decides. In Europe you have maybe 15 clubs with a huge financial resource.”

Rumours of an interest in Dynamo Moscow striker Aleksandr Kokorin, coming a week after he was linked with Manchester United, reek of an over-active agent with too much time on his hands, as any desperate move for the Russian would seem to contradict Wenger’s policy this summer of waiting until a genuine world-class talent is available and then pouncing. But time is running out quickly. Benzema is off the agenda and Arsenal’s internal options do not convince.

Thierry Henry says this is a “massive week” for Arsenal – highlighting the need for a new striker and a defensive midfielder before the transfer window closes – and it is no exaggeration to say it could define their entire campaign. If the current misfiring attack is left intact – despite it patently needing an upgrade – Arsenal’s alleged title challenge could be derailed at its very start.

Tom Adams - @tomEurosport