I was going to post about our strikers before the game, but decided to wait till after the game just in case. The game only proved what I had worked out earlier.

Before the match, and for the past week or two, everyone has been talking about 2 issues -

1. 4-5-1 vs. 4-4-2
2. Why Wenger doesn’t start Bendtner ahead of Adebayor following his performance in recent games.

I will not discuss the first issue now. Instead I will discuss the latter issue using statistics.

Wenger today played with Bendtner and Eduardo up front giving Adebayor a rest. Unfortunately Bendtner had a total nightmare of a game which ended disgracefully or rather stupidly from his side with a rash tackle. These things happen, this is football, and he still needs some more experience. We’ve seen these kind of silly mistimed tackled from lack of experience happen before with Denilson this season and Fabregas a couple of years ago. Hopefully its a learning experience for Nicklas.

On the other hand, Eduardo proved his reputation as a cool finisher with a killer instinct. Following his excellent finishes as Blackburn, he had two more today at Everton. The guy makes finishing look too easy. His record at Zagreb and for Croatia is nothing less than amazing. People have been on his back here at Arsenal so far this season, but in fact he has been excellent too.

Now the numbers part, which striker is the best of the pack this season??

I took the number of minutes each player played, and then got averages for goals, assists, and shots on target. I also got the percentage of shots that are on target from total shots. It will all make sense in a minute I hope -

These statistics are for all competitions this season.

Eduardo is a true striker. In his limited opportunities, he really made the most out of them, leading the way in terms of goals per 90 minutes played. He is also the most accurate, with more than 64% of his shots being on target!

With his excellent finishing, and these impressive statistics, I’d like to hear from people who still don’t rate him.

We are blessed this season with an excellent forward line full of talent, but in recent years we have been criticized for our lack of an out and out striker. Let’s hope Eduardo will fill that slot for us as well as he did previously in his career!