Arsenal are keen to sign a “monstrous” £59m upgrade for Havertz

The last week or so has been nothing short of a disaster Arsenal.

Mikel Arteta the side first dropped points away to Brighton & Hove Albion in Premier Leaguethen they lost the first share League Cup semi-final 2-0 against Newcastle United and then, to top things off, they were relegated from the FA Cup by Manchester United, despite having the man advantage.

There have been poor performances from the whole team in the last few games but it is hard to ignore, especially last night and throughout the week, the terrible performances of the club captain Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz.

The Norwegian has looked a shadow of his former self in recent weeks and missed a penalty in regular time against United, while the former Chelsea player missed a mountain of chances in both cup defeats, so recent reports have linked the club with a player to replace the latter and a revival of the former would not should have been a big shock.

Arsenal continue their search for strikers

According to a a recent report from The Independent’s chief football writer, Miguel Delaney, Arsenal want to sign Benjamin Šešek from RB Leipzig.

The report did not mention a price, but a story from last month claimed the German club would ask for the minimum 70 million euros for their star strikerwhich is around £59 million.

However, while that’s not an incredibly high price for a promising striker in the modern game, Delaney also claims the board would ‘prefer to spend in the summer.’

That said, with the club’s season hanging in the balance, the club may have to make the leap and spend more than they want to this month, as not only would Šeško be an upgrade on Havertz, but he could also revive Odegaard.

To make Šeško a better Arsenal

So, if Arsenal were to raise the necessary cash to bring Šešek to the Emirates this month, he would be in direct competition with Havertz for a starting spot up top, and based on how they’ve played this season, we think that’s a competition he’d win.

For example, in 24 appearances this seasona total of only 1683 minutes, the Slovenian “monstrum”, as they call it analyst Ben Mattinsonhe scored 12 goals and provided three assists, which means that he is currently averaging a goal every 1.6 games, or every 112.2 minutes.

Although Topnik’s number 29 scored and assisted as many goals this season, he did it in 27 appearancesa total of 2232 minutes, which means that a goal was scored every 1.8 games, or one every 148.8 minutes, which is a significant difference.

In fact, it’s this difference that could help him get the best out of Odegaard, as despite falling far short of his greatest record in yesterday’s game, the Norwegian still created two big chances for his teammates, suggesting that with a more clinical striker in front of him, he would start to record assists for the team.

We see that the ace of Leipzig finishes much better through Understat’s core numbersas according to them he has scored seven league goals this season from an expected goals ratio of just 4.61 and was even more effective last season when he scored 14 league goals from an expected goals ratio of 8.60.

In contrast, the former Chelsea man has scored as many league goals this season, but from expected number of goals 9.46 iwhile he was slightly less wasteful last season, he still underperformed, scoring 13 goals at an expected 13.47.

Ultimately, Havertz has been a useful player for Arsenal over the last year and a half, but it is now undeniable that he is a poor finisher, and as the numbers suggest, the opposite is true for Šešek.

So if Arteta and Co are looking to improve their attack and help get more out of their main creator in Odegaard, then signing the Leipzig star this month would be a great start.