When did Manchester United hit rock bottom under David Moyes? Was it the successive 3-0 home defeats to Liverpool and Manchester City? The penalty shoot-out heartbreak against Sunderland in the League Cup semi-final?
The time they were outplayed, outfought and outscored by Everton, Moyes left red-faced by the side he had walked away from 11 months earlier?
Or perhaps that 2-2 draw at home to a dreadful Fulham side, a game that will always be remembered for the staggering 82 crosses desperately launched in the general direction of a 6ft 7ins Dan Burn.
Will Arsenal sign Dominic Calvert-Lewin from Everton?
That was far, far more than the 33 crosses Arsenal attempted during their 2-0 defeat to bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur in December 2020. But the narrative, at full-time, was broadly the same; a team lacking any semblance of a coherent attacking plan resorting to hopeful punts in pursuit of a result that would never come.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, after all, were never likely to soar through the air like a rocket-powered salmon before thumping the ball into the back of Hugo Lloris’ net.
The Arsenal strikers, both of whom started against Spurs 12 months ago, have scored 119 Premier League goals between them. Only nine of those came with their heads.
Compare that with Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
A 6ft-something, old-school battering ram of a number nine who honed his talents under one of the Premier League’s most effective targetmen in Duncan Ferguson, Calvert-Lewin has scored 14 of his 43 top-flight goals with his head.
More than Lacazette and Aubameyang combined.
So, with reports from both Goal and The Mail suggesting that the £60 million-rated England international is Arsenal’s number one target with Lacazette’s contract expiring in 2022, it seems that Arteta wants an entirely different sort of striker to lead his North London rebuilding project.
“You will find (fewer) strikers like my type, a bit old-fashioned who like to head the ball,” former Arsenal hero Olivier Giroud said of Calvert-Lewin recently.
It’s still very important, especially in the Premier League. Calvert-Lewin, for example, is great in the air.”
“During my spell at Everton, Dominic was a very young but very good talent,” adds Sam Allardyce, the former Goodison Park boss (SportBible).
“I think he is arguably the best header of a ball from crosses and that’s a dying art.”
Maybe, the next time they attempt 33 crosses in a single game, Arsenal will have a bit more luck.
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