ESPN journalist, Gabriele Marcotti, believes that Arsene Wenger doesn’t need to buy another striker.

With Danny Welbeck back from injury and in form at the end of the season, Marcotti has urged Arsene Wenger not to spend big on new striker but to put faith in Welbeck and his abilities.

Marcotti doesn’t believe that Arsenal need to look any further than Danny if they are looking for a top striker, saying, “I am a big Danny Welbeck guy, now that he’s fit.”

The Gunners are currently in the market for a new striker and seem very determined to bring Kylian Mbappe from Monaco in what would be an ever-increasing world record fee.

Let’s compare the two with data from Squawka based on the player’s influence in their respective leagues:

Goals

Kylian Mbappe made 29 appearances, 13 more than Danny Welbeck with 16 games.

In those 29 games, Mbappe scored 15 goals, an average of 0.52 goals per-game, while Welbeck scored 0.12 goals per game, or a total of two goals in the whole season.

Assists

Moving onto assists, Mbappe has created eight goals for his teammates while Welbeck made only two.

As the number of assists often depends on the ability of the players who receive the pass, the number can often be misleading. Because of that, let’s compare the number of created chances and key passes from both players.

Chances

Mbappe created 31 chances for his teammates and made 23 key passes. Welbeck, however, created five chances and has made three key passes in 16 games.

One could argue that Welbeck commits much more to the defensive side of his team and that his runs open up space, providing passing options for his teammates, and that is true, but Welbeck is a striker, and if you don’t value a striker by the number of his goals and his ability to set upchances, than what’s the point of playing a striker in the team?

With all due respect to Welbeck, he’s just another slightly above average player in the Premier League and he doesn’t seem to have enough quality to play every week at his best and score more than 15-20 goals per season.

Mbappe on the other hand…