Arsenal’s No.9 Dilemma: Gallas Warns of Champions League Challenge
Viktor Gyokeres did not arrive quietly. A big-money signing in 2025, he was supposed to close the circle at Emirates Stadium, to finally solve the centre-forward riddle that has stalked Arsenal through several regimes and several nearly seasons.
On paper, his first year looked respectable: 21 goals in all competitions, a solid return for a debut campaign in English football. On the pitch, though, the jury is still out. Inside the stadium, and crucially inside the manager’s office, there is a lingering doubt over whether he is truly the man to lead a title-winning, Champions League-winning attack.
This season has underlined that uncertainty. Gyokeres has started just one Premier League match. Mikel Arteta has instead pushed Kai Havertz into the role of central striker, trusting the German’s movement, pressing and link play over a more traditional No.9 profile. Havertz has four goals to his name so far, having opened his account in the Community Shield, but this is not a forward line that terrifies defences purely by reputation.
For a club that wants to dominate Europe, that matters.
A Champions League Dream, A Penalty Nightmare
Arsenal came within a heartbeat of answering every question last season. They pushed through to the 2026 Champions League final, matched Paris Saint-Germain over 120 minutes, and then watched the trophy slip away on penalties. It was the kind of defeat that lingers in the corridors and dressing rooms long after the medals have been boxed away.
That loss sharpened the debate. Can this Arsenal side, as fluid and structured as it is, truly conquer Europe without a ruthless, undisputed No.9?
PSG often show what a different route looks like. Luis Enrique’s team can roll out a front line that feels more like a carousel than a classic trident. Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia – they drift, rotate, pop up in half-spaces and wide channels, swapping zones and reference points. It is chaos, but controlled chaos, and it works because the system has been honed for years by a coach who knows exactly how to bend a game to his will without a fixed striker.
Barcelona did something similar in Pep Guardiola’s era. False nines, roaming forwards, wingers who behaved like playmakers. Even now, they do not always rely on a recognised central striker to anchor the attack.
Arteta’s Arsenal, though, are not PSG. Not yet.
Gallas: “They Don’t Have That Number Nine”
When the question was put directly to William Gallas, the former Arsenal defender did not dance around it. Speaking to GOAL in association with SeatPick, he drew a hard line between what PSG can do and what Arsenal are currently equipped for.
“I think it's only PSG who can play without a striker. They’re the only team that can still win games and win the Champions League without a striker,” Gallas said. “Luis Enrique has played without a striker who is a real number nine for many years so he conducts that system perfectly.
“For Arsenal and Mikel Arteta, I think he really needs that number nine who can help him win these important games and score that important goal and right now, it looks like they don't have that number nine.”
It is a blunt assessment, and it cuts to the heart of Arsenal’s evolution. Arteta has built a side that controls territory, suffocates opponents with pressure, and spreads goals across the pitch. But when the margins tighten – Champions League knockouts, title run-ins, finals decided by a single moment – managers tend to look for certainty. The player who turns half-chances into defining goals.
At the moment, Gallas does not see that figure in red and white.
Top of the League, But Still Searching
The irony is that Arsenal are hardly in crisis. Far from it. They are defending Premier League champions and already five points clear at the top of the table this season. Domestically, they look composed, experienced, and comfortable with the pressure of expectation.
Yet even dominant sides carry fault lines. Arsenal’s came into view in the Carabao Cup, where they suffered a shock defeat to League Two side Fleetwood. It was the sort of result that jolts a squad, not because of the trophy itself, but because of what those games represent.
Cup ties in the early rounds are oxygen for squad players. They are the nights when fringe forwards, new signings and frustrated substitutes can show they belong in the starting XI. Losing that avenue, Gallas believes, has consequences inside the dressing room.
“Unfortunately, Arsenal are out of the Carabao Cup now and that can be a good competition to make players happy, to make players feel that they are part of the project,” he said. “Because we know at the beginning of the season, everybody is very excited to fight for their position.
“Slowly, slowly, when you are fighting, when you are training very hard, and then on the weekend you are not in the starting eleven or you are not on the list for the weekend, slowly, slowly your excitement starts to drop.”
Those words will resonate with players like Gyokeres, stuck between impact and indifference, desperate for rhythm in a season that offers fewer low-risk opportunities to play.
Winter, Fatigue, and the Art of Management
The real test, Gallas suggests, is still to come. Not in May, but in the grind of winter.
“This is especially true in the winter period of November and December and January,” he said. “You suddenly as a player you are not the same. You go to training but not really with the same motivation because before you even set foot on the training ground, you almost know you won't be in the starting XI for the weekend or you won't be on the list. That is very difficult sometimes for the players.
“That's why they have to be really, really strong and Mikel Arteta, he knows how to communicate with his players, to keep their seasons alive.”
That communication will be crucial as Arsenal juggle a heavy calendar. They will launch another FA Cup campaign in 2027. They remain unbeaten in four European fixtures this term, with heavyweight clashes against Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid looming on the horizon. Those nights will demand depth, focus and unity from a squad that includes a high-profile striker still trying to prove he should be the reference point, not the rotation option.
Gyokeres will get chances. The schedule guarantees it. What he does with them could shape not only his Arsenal career, but the ceiling of this team in Europe.
Because the question hangs there, stubborn and unresolved: can a side with such control, such structure, such promise truly conquer France, Spain and Germany’s elite without a fearsome No.9 at its core – or will that missing piece define their era as much as their football does?
