Arsenal's Left Flank Dilemma: Pennant Warns of Weakness
Arsenal have spent the last year trying to crack their No.9 puzzle. They paid big money for Viktor Gyokeres 12 months ago, handed him the responsibility of leading a title charge and watched him return 21 goals in his debut season. On paper, that’s a success.
On the pitch right now, it hasn’t been enough to make him undroppable.
Mikel Arteta has opened the 2026-27 campaign with Kai Havertz as his starting centre-forward, leaving Gyokeres to scrap for minutes from the bench. The Swede has gone from headline signing to impact option in a single summer, a clear sign that Arsenal’s attack is still very much a work in progress.
And that’s before you even get to the left flank.
Clutch goals gone – and not replaced
Leandro Trossard, the man who so often delivered when it mattered most last season, has gone. He’s now at Besiktas. Gabriel Martinelli, a fixture at the club for seven years and a constant threat even as his numbers dipped, has left for Al-Hilal in the Saudi Pro League.
Those two exits have stripped Arsenal of something you can’t easily buy: clutch moments.
Jermaine Pennant, speaking to GOAL in association with NetBet Casino, did not sugar-coat it.
“I think they've actually got weaker. I think Arsenal are weaker, especially going forward anyway, than they were last season. Because they've lost some really clutch individuals,” he said.
“I think without Trossard they probably wouldn't have won the league. The West Ham goal, you could go on with the important goals he scored - Aston Villa. Then they've lost Martinelli, yeah, his number's dwindled but again it's still a good impact player you can bring off the bench. They've lost him.”
Arsenal’s response on that side of the pitch has been Christos Tzolis. Talented, energetic, promising. But he is also, right now, the only specialist left winger of note in the squad.
“And they've not really replaced that apart from Tzolis. So if he gets injured or whatnot, their left side's kind of doomed,” Pennant warned. “You’ve got to put [Eberechi] Eze out there, he's not a winger, he's a midfielder.”
Missed chances in the market
Arsenal have not been blind to the issue. They’ve looked at the very top of the market.
There was a brief flicker of hope around Vinicius Junior when his contract talks at Real Madrid stalled. That door slammed shut once he committed his future at Santiago Bernabeu and stayed a ‘Galactico’.
Barcola, fresh from lifting the Champions League and suddenly available as Paris Saint-Germain opened the exit doors, did move. Arsenal asked what it would take. The answer: £123 million. At that point Arteta and the recruitment team walked away, and Liverpool stepped in.
The Gunners have loosened the purse strings in recent windows and are not shy about spending big when they believe the piece is right. This time, they balked. The left wing, though, still glares back at them as the obvious spot to upgrade.
“They have to” go big again
Pennant is convinced that, sooner rather than later, Arsenal must land a genuine star for that role.
Asked if he expects a “superstar” left winger to arrive, he said: “They have to at some point because teams are not going to sit dormant.
“Teams around them are not going to not strengthen in those areas. Come January, I'm sure the likes of Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool and Man City are going to go in the market again and strengthen again. So they have to.”
The warning is stark. Stand still, and you go backwards. In Pennant’s eyes, Arsenal already have.
“Yes, they’ve strengthened at the back. So I think going forward they definitely need to strengthen. Because they've probably fallen out of favour with Gyokeres and they've reverted back to [Kai] Havertz, who was never really their 15, 20-goal-a-season guy.”
Results perfect, questions lingering
On the surface, Arsenal’s start gives Arteta every excuse to argue that nothing is broken. Three Premier League wins from three. A Champions League opener against Napoli navigated without a hitch. Bukayo Saka already on two goals, Martin Odegaard rediscovering his spark as the creative heartbeat, the defence looking solid.
From the manager’s perspective, the tools are there to chase more trophies.
Yet the sense persists that the squad is one injury away from a serious imbalance on that left side. Tzolis carries a heavy burden. Eze, as Pennant points out, is a midfielder being nudged wide rather than a natural winger who lives on the touchline.
Arsenal have shown they can build a title-winning side. The question now is sharper, more ruthless: will they risk another season with a patched-up left flank, or will the next transfer window finally bring the superstar wide man their attack still seems to be crying out for?
