Ollie Watkins

[Risso]

I think Duran has showed in his last two outings that HE can perform a team role, and contribute to the all round play of the team. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his performance yesterday. His games earlier this season were him being a maverick. Coming on, charging around like a head case, but scoring some excellent goals. Yesterday, he played the usual Watkins role very well, with the added bonus of not coming out with his boots on the wrong feet, like Watkins appeared to, and scoring (another) brilliant goal.

[Mister E]

I'm still wondering whether we can get Watkins and Duran to play together. It hasn't been tried much, and our left side needs working on while Ramsey is out. Play Watkins left of Duran and see if we can convert more of these chances.

[ChicagoLion]

I'm still wondering whether we can get Watkins and Duran to play together. It hasn't been tried much, and our left side needs working on while Ramsey is out. Play Watkins left of Duran and see if we can convert more of these chances.

I don’t see it, they just do not seem to have the ingredients to make it work, in fact I think it takes something away from both of them when played together.
Be back to the Ings Watkins partnership that seemed to take ages to work out that it was not a goer.

[Mister E]

I'm still wondering whether we can get Watkins and Duran to play together. It hasn't been tried much, and our left side needs working on while Ramsey is out. Play Watkins left of Duran and see if we can convert more of these chances.

I don’t see it, they just do not seem to have the ingredients to make it work, in fact I think it takes something away from both of them when played together.
Be back to the Ings Watkins partnership that seemed to take ages to work out that it was not a goer.

different players, different manager...

[cdbearsfan]

They've never had much of a run together. I think if ever we could get Kamara and Onana fit at the same time it might be worth a try, with those two offering extra cover. If Philogene doesn't work out we need to try something different and we can't sign another attacking player until January.

[OCD]

They've never had much of a run together. I think if ever we could get Kamara and Onana fit at the same time it might be worth a try, with those two offering extra cover. If Philogene doesn't work out we need to try something different and we can't sign another attacking player until January.

That something different might be Buendia.

[andyh]

Watkins and Ings didn't work either.
Is it that Ollie can ONLY play as a lone striker ?   

[Monty]

Watkins and Ings didn't work either.
Is it that Ollie can ONLY play as a lone striker ?   

Find me one case of a 4-4-2 working at a Champions League level with two out-and-out strikers.

[Risso]

Watkins and Ings didn't work either.
Is it that Ollie can ONLY play as a lone striker ?   

I'd say he certainly WANTS to play as a lone striker. His face when a strike partner comes on to the field at the same time is like mine when I see the in-laws pull up on the drive.

[WarszaVillan]

Watkins reminds me a bit of Dean Saunders. Can be brilliant, we probably can't afford/attract better at the moment, but he can also miss a lot of chances. Like Saunders he tends to go on runs of scoring when he is full of confidence, hopefully he'll get on one of those again soon.

[Brend'Watkins]

Watkins reminds me a bit of Dean Saunders. Can be brilliant, we probably can't afford/attract better at the moment, but he can also miss a lot of chances. Like Saunders he tends to go on runs of scoring when he is full of confidence, hopefully he'll get on one of those again soon.

That's where I am with him too.  When he's on it, he's Arsenal bound for £50 million +.  When he's not, he's expendable. I thought he was decent enough when he came on, he seems to have improved his hold up play and his control of the ball with his first touch has vastly improved. He will have a purple patch again soon I'm sure. 

[Dave]

Watkins reminds me a bit of Dean Saunders. Can be brilliant, we probably can't afford/attract better at the moment, but he can also miss a lot of chances. Like Saunders he tends to go on runs of scoring when he is full of confidence, hopefully he'll get on one of those again soon.

That's where I am with him too.  When he's on it, he's Arsenal bound for £50 million +.  When he's not, he's expendable. I thought he was decent enough when he came on, he seems to have improved his hold up play and his control of the ball with his first touch has vastly improved. He will have a purple patch again soon I'm sure. 

But even then, only four strikers have more goals then him in the league this season. He's got seven in fifteen matches, at the same point last season he had eight in fifteen.

The main difference in his output is that he's not setting up buckets of goals for Bailey / Diaby / DL / McGinn like he was last year even in the games in which he wasn't scoring. Which is partly the fault of others (e.g Rogers open goal against Bournemouth), and partly his fault (e.g the last ten minutes of Saturday).

[Percy McCarthy]

Watkins reminds me a bit of Dean Saunders. Can be brilliant, we probably can't afford/attract better at the moment, but he can also miss a lot of chances. Like Saunders he tends to go on runs of scoring when he is full of confidence, hopefully he'll get on one of those again soon.

That's where I am with him too.  When he's on it, he's Arsenal bound for £50 million +.  When he's not, he's expendable. I thought he was decent enough when he came on, he seems to have improved his hold up play and his control of the ball with his first touch has vastly improved. He will have a purple patch again soon I'm sure. 

But even then, only four strikers have more goals then him in the league this season. He's got seven in fifteen matches, at the same point last season he had eight in fifteen.

The main difference in his output is that he's not setting up buckets of goals for Bailey / Diaby / DL / McGinn like he was last year even in the games in which he wasn't scoring. Which is partly the fault of others (e.g Rogers open goal against Bournemouth), and partly his fault (e.g the last ten minutes of Saturday).

Can anybody be bothered to work out how many minutes he’s played compared to this stage last season?

[Dave]

Watkins reminds me a bit of Dean Saunders. Can be brilliant, we probably can't afford/attract better at the moment, but he can also miss a lot of chances. Like Saunders he tends to go on runs of scoring when he is full of confidence, hopefully he'll get on one of those again soon.

That's where I am with him too.  When he's on it, he's Arsenal bound for £50 million +.  When he's not, he's expendable. I thought he was decent enough when he came on, he seems to have improved his hold up play and his control of the ball with his first touch has vastly improved. He will have a purple patch again soon I'm sure. 

But even then, only four strikers have more goals then him in the league this season. He's got seven in fifteen matches, at the same point last season he had eight in fifteen.

The main difference in his output is that he's not setting up buckets of goals for Bailey / Diaby / DL / McGinn like he was last year even in the games in which he wasn't scoring. Which is partly the fault of others (e.g Rogers open goal against Bournemouth), and partly his fault (e.g the last ten minutes of Saturday).

Can anybody be bothered to work out how many minutes he’s played compared to this stage last season?

I can't be bothered, but I'd guess it's significantly fewer as Duran wasn't getting 30 minutes every game last autumn / winter like he is now.

Edit - also, he had five goals in Europe by this stage of last season, compared to zero this season. Which obviously makes the statistics look worse, but I expect that if he'd had two matches against Hibs this season instead of matches against Bayern and Juventus he might have more.

[Somniloquism]

A lot less due to the striker change at 65 mins. Last season, he didn't last the full 90 mins in 5 games last season, with three of those being in the first four. This season there has only been three where he did the full 90.

This season he is on a goal every 160mins, for the whole of last season it was 170mins.