Julian Alvarez gives Mikel Arteta the answer to Arsenal Folarin Balogun problem

Another day passed and Folarin Balogun’s future at Arsenal appears no clearer. His lack of a single minute against Manchester United raised many questions although Mikel Arteta did provide context to the situation and hinted he’d be in for some minutes against Barcelona on Thursday.

“We had some options up front as well and we wanted to load some players,” he said after the 2-0 defeat to Manchester United. “That’s why some players today didn’t have any exposure, but they will in the next game.”

The debate continues over the striker situation with Balogun seemingly behind Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah. It has been somewhat surprising to see such a lack of opportunity offered to Balogun, getting just 70 minutes of action across three fixtures, not featuring at all against United as mentioned.

This is compared to the 179 minutes that Arteta has granted Nketiah. The Arsenal number 14 has talent, this is undeniable and his goals last season were valuable in the absence of Gabriel Jesus but Leandro Trossard’s introduction to the centre-forward role brought with it a higher output in the forward line as a collective and a successive run of wins.

Balogun has shown consistency in France with 21 Ligue 1 goals in 37 games, a better than 1 in 2 strike rate. Yet this has seemingly not given him enough to force his way more into Arteta’s summer plans.

When looking to title rivals Manchester City they have both Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez. Although the Norwegian is easily the first choice and features in almost every single game that Man City play, Pep Guardiola has managed to find the balance and give his Argentinian star plenty of game time too.

It helps that Alvarez can play in wide areas in addition to centre-forward. Across all competitions, Alvarez managed 2524 minutes in 49 games which is just over 600 minutes less than Balogun achieved in his 39 games.

Although Balogun is far more of a specific centre-forward than Alvarez, Gabriel Jesus is not. Jesus can operate in wide areas comfortably and has done for club and country.