‘He needs to get better’: Mikel Arteta says Emile Smith Rowe has to improve in one area

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Speaking to Arsenal’s official club website, Mikel Arteta has outlined the area in which Emile Smith Rowe needs to improve going forward.

The 20-year-old has been excellent since being brought into the Arsenal first-team, but he’s far from the finished product.

Indeed, Mikel Arteta has stated that he needs to get better when it comes to scoring goals.

What’s been said?

Smith Rowe scored Arsenal’s first goal of pre-season on Tuesday, and after the game Arteta admitted that he thinks the youngster needs to improve in front of goal.

“He knows that it is a part of the game he needs to get better at. We are working on it a lot and you could see the positions that he took today. He created two or three big chances,” Arteta said.

Spot on

Say what you will about Arteta’s judgement, but he’s spot on in this case.

Now, that isn’t to say that Smith Rowe isn’t an excellent footballer, but the fact that he only scored two league goals last season shows that he needs to be a bit sharper in front of goal.

Factor in that one of those strikes came from a catastrophic goalkeeping error against Chelsea and you can see that the attacking midfielder simply hasn’t been clinical enough.

Luckily, Arteta has spotted that and now him and his coaching team can work on getting that right.