It was around about a year into his tenure as Arsenal manager when Mikel Arteta highlighted a major problem in his squad - a lack of goals from midfield.
In the 2020/21 campaign, Mohamed Elneny, Thomas Partey, Dani Ceballos and Granit Xhaka managed four goals between them across all competitions, whilst the more creative players such as Willian, Emile Smith Rowe and Martin Odegaard managed seven in total.
"It's very clear. If you say 'can they do it?' it's a question mark. Have they done it in the past? The answer is no," Arteta said in December 2020. "We haven't had any goals from midfield, it's not something that happened [just] this year, it happened in other years and is something that has to be addressed.
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"To change the qualities and characteristics of players is very, very difficult. A big team needs players in midfield who score goals. They need central defenders that score goals from set-pieces to add to that. If you start to lose those margins, you start to lose points, you start to be away from the top team, this is not any science."
Things did drastically improve for Arsenal last season with Smith Rowe netting 11 in all competitions and Odegaard weighing in with seven. But this term it would appear that Arteta's finally solved the problem as there is no longer an over-reliance on one player scoring the goals.
Whilst the Gunners' captain didn't get on the scoresheet in the 4-1 win over Leeds United on Saturday afternoon, he is already into double figures for goals and claimed yet another assist by picking out Xhaka to head past Illan Meslier to wrap up all three points at the Emirates Stadium.
That was the midfielder's third goal in as many games for the north London outfit - whilst he was also on target for Switzerland during the international break - meaning this is his best-ever season in terms of goal contributions since joining the club back in the summer of 2016.
Taking only the Premier League into account, in each of the 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons, Xhaka had only managed to find the back of the net for Arsenal once, and he weighed in with two assists. It took seven game weeks for him to break that particular record this season and he's not looked back since.
Furthermore, with 29 Premier League games played, Xhaka has already exceeded his best-ever goal and assists contribution for Arsenal in the Premier League, which was previously eight (one goal, seven assists, as per transfermarkt) from the 2017/18 campaign as he now has 10 (five goals and assists).
Of course, Xhaka's quest to make an impact in the final third has coincided with a role change. Previously recognised as more of a deeper-lying midfielder tasked with dictating play and breaking up opposition attacks, he now often finds himself breaking into the box as one of two 'eights' alongside Partey and Odegaard.
"Yeah especially here [points at head]. When you think you are going to score, you score. And when you score one, you believe in the next one you are going to score," Arteta said when asked about the 30-year-old's netting again. "And when you score again, you believe in the next one you are going to score. Great finish, great run, great timing, so happy for him. They need to contribute with goals."
When taking into account that Smith Rowe is yet to contribute this season as a result of injury and fitness issues, if he can get in on the act and the aforementioned pair continue their rich vein of goalscoring form in the final nine games of the campaign, then Arsenal will have a great chance of being crowned Premier League champions.
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