Ben Sesko is a football player that Arsenal is interested in.London thinks about why they might pick the Slovenian over Alexander Isak.
It looks like Alexander Isak would be the best choice for Arsenal to hire as their new number nine this summer. A center forward with experience in the Premier League who has scored more than 20 goals for Newcastle United and who didn’t seem to care about early injury worries.
But the problem is that Newcastle doesn’t want to sell the Swedish international striker, so the Gunners have already moved on to more realistic targets.
As part of his current contract, the Slovenian striker has a €65 million (£55.6 million) release option. The German club wanted to keep him, but the buyout gives another team the power to use it. Arsenal wants to get things done quickly, and it looks like Sesko wants to figure out his future before the European Championships.
This week, the younger scorer turned 21. He has only played in one season of Bundesliga football, so many fans are still not sure that he is the right player for the club to invest in. Many people think that the club should only try to sign players who are better than the starting lineup after another title bid failed. This is why Isak is so important to many.
That being said, it becomes much more clear why Arsenal is so fond of Sesko when you look at his season with Leipzig. He started out on the bench but made a name for himself in the second half of the season.
First, let’s look at goals and assists. According to FBRef, Isak finished the season with 0.92 goals and assists per 90 minutes for Newcastle. But even though he scored two fewer non-penalty goals than Isak, he played a lot fewer minutes than the Swede, so he ended the season with 0.94 non-penalty goals and assists per 90 minutes.
After £55.6m worth of transfers, Sesko signs, Nketiah is sold, and Isak makes a choice. This is Arsenal’s dream forward line.
Read also: Arsenal had every right to turn down Victor Osimhen after comparing him to Kai Havertz and giving £55.6m to someone else.
When only non-penalty goals are looked at, though, Isak does worse: he only scored 0.64 per 90 minutes, while Sesko scored 0.82. Isak did better than his npxG per 90 (0.62) by just 0.02 points, while Sesko did better than his npxG of 0.45 points, which means he did better by 0.37 points.
This is shown by the fact that Sesko (0.3) has a higher goal-per-shot ratio than Isak (0.22). In terms of how many goals other players on their teams scored, Sesko ended the season with 0.47 goal-creating moves per 90 minutes, while Isak had 0.4.
Usually, Arteta wants every player on the field to help with defense, and Sesko’s stats will have caught the manager’s attention as well. He made more tackles (0.76 vs. 0.2), won more tackles (0.29 vs. 0), blocked more shots (1.35 vs. 0.64) and cleared more balls (1.59 vs. 0.52).
Isak is a very tall 6’4″, but Sesko is a bit taller at 6’5″. Interestingly, this small difference becomes much bigger when it comes to how hard both players hit the ball in the air. Isak only won 18.8% of his flying duels, while Sesko won 56.7% of them.
Given all of these facts and the fact that the price could be less than half of what Newcastle wants for Isak, it’s good news for Arsenal. Right now it’s just a matter of getting it done and seeing if the numbers add up to an Arsenal shirt.
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