Gary Neville expects Arsenal to win the Premier League this season, but he does not think Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres are enough to make them European champions.
The former Manchester United defender gave his verdict on NBC after Saturday’s 1-0 win over Hull City at the Emirates Stadium, a game Arsenal won through a scrappy Martin Odegaard goal and little else in the way of clear chances.
Struggling to score at home against a newly promoted side is not what anyone expects from champions, and Neville was asked directly whether the two strikers were up to the job. His answer was blunt.
What did Gary Neville say about Havertz and Gyokeres?
Neville made it clear that the league is not where he sees the problem. The concern is the level above it.
He said: “I would like to see them get a second. I think to reach that next level and become a Champions League-winning team, they’re going to need to add two or three players in attack at some point. They’ll get through the Premier League. I think they’ll win it this season. But when it comes to being a really top team in the biggest moments, I think they’ll just fall a little bit short.”
Asked if that meant Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres were simply not enough, Neville replied: “Not enough. If they were my second and third strikers, and I had a world-class centre-forward in front of them, I’d think that’s a great front three capable of handling both the Champions League and the Premier League. But they need that world-class striker up front, and maybe a player off the left as well.”
Arteta wants more chaos, not a new face
Mikel Arteta saw the same problem from a different angle. The Hull game was Arsenal’s sixth win by a single goal in 10 Premier League matches this season, and he said his side “need to be more efficient”, adding that at times they “are trying to score the perfect goal”.
His fix is about the players he already has. Arteta wants Arsenal to be “more pragmatic” and “more chaotic”, and said that against a defence as well organised as Hull’s the answer is “generating volume”.
That is a manager deliberately keeping his squad’s minds off January. Every narrow win seems to bring a new round of talk about which forward Arsenal should sign, and Arteta clearly does not want his strikers reading it.
Does a title winner need four top forwards?
Neville knows the model he is describing. His most successful Manchester United sides were built on depth up front, with Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole starting in the treble season while Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham waited to come off the bench. Later came Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov, Carlos Tevez, Javier Hernandez and Danny Welbeck.
Against that list, Arsenal’s options look thin. Havertz and Gyokeres both have their uses, but neither has made the No.9 shirt his own in the way a Champions League winner usually needs. The search has not stopped, either: Arsenal have stayed in touch over Real Madrid’s Endrick, and Neville’s call for a player off the left fits their interest in Leipzig’s Antonio Nusa.
Verdict: Neville is right about Gyokeres and Havertz
It is hard to argue with him. Arsenal are six points clear at the top going into the international break, and a side that keeps winning 1-0 is doing plenty right at the back. But six one-goal wins from 10 also means that one bad finishing day can turn three points into one.
Arteta’s call for chaos and volume might squeeze more out of this group before January. Long term, though, the gap between winning the league and winning in Europe looks like the one Neville picked out: a world-class centre-forward, with Havertz and Gyokeres as the men behind him rather than the men in front.
