Let’s travel back in time to January 2024. Arsenal had a bad run of form, which probably lost them the league championship in the end.

A new striker was a necessity because the goals were drying up during the run-up to the New Year, when they managed just one goal in three games.

One possibility was Ivan Toney, but he came and went before signing a contract in Saudi Arabia during the summer. But by then, the dream of a new center-forward had fallen from the top of the list.

Although Benjamin Sesko, a phenomenon at RB Leipzig, signed a new deal in Germany, it’s possible that he is a goal for the future.

For the time being, though, the Gunners are more than content with a certain Kai Havertz, who has been a fantastic asset to the team ever since joining as their number nine.

So far this season, Kai Havertz’s stats
Havertz was given a charity penalty by Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard away at Bournemouth at this time last year.

The contentious £65 million acquisition from Chelsea had not scored any goals as of late September, making him everything but a success.

That sunny afternoon at the Vitality Stadium was the day he opened his account, and he hasn’t looked back. The German became a cult icon at the Emirates Stadium after he scored a late winner against Brentford.

Havertz has started the current campaign like a house on fire, scoring six goals in ten games. He’s also emulating a fellow left-footer in Robin van Persie, having now scored in seven successive home matches. Not bad indeed.

As a striker in Arsenal colours, he is up there with the very best in the world, having registered 20 goal involvements in 20 games (12 goals and 8 assists), averaging one every 83 minutes.

It’s amazing how much has changed in just one year. One of the first names on the team sheet is currently the former Leverkusen star. Sometimes, football is a weird old game, isn’t it?

When it comes to incredible ascents, Mika Biereth has had an amazing season in front of goal. Additionally, he is now outscoring Havertz.

The way that Biereth is doing since leaving Arsenal
There were high expectations for a talented center-forward who was a fairly consistent goal scorer at the youth level when Biereth joined with Arsenal as a teenager in July 2021 after leaving Fulham.

Even though he’s now finally receiving his bouquets in the senior game, it never completely worked out for him.

The 21-year-old starred out on loan last season, scoring 15 goals in 37 matches for Motherwell in Scotland then Sturm Graz in Austria.

He helped them to win the league title and was scoring goals in the Europa Conference League. It was a breakout year but it wasn’t enough to earn him a place back in the Arsenal first-team.

Like Flo Balogun a year before, Edu and Co decided to sell while he was in form. Sturm Graz came calling again and agreed upon a £4m transfer fee. It’s peanuts for a club like Arsenal but represents fine business for an academy product regardless.

How has he done since then, then? The striker, who was born in London and is eligible for Denmark, has scored seven goals in nine league games, one more than the highly effective Havertz. He has eight throughout 13 games in all competitions.
That total was considerably boosted by a hat-trick that Biereth scored over the weekend, as he thrashed RB Salzburg 5-0, scoring three goals past them.

Arsenal will probably not feel too bad about this, but they have lost a special player who was called a “Haaland-Kane hybrid” in a previous season during an interview with the Independent, a British newspaper.

The striker acknowledged in an interview with the publication that he had similar components to his game.

“Just like Haaland, my main concern is getting goals. I would accept two goals and two ball touches if you were to offer them to me. It’s all about scoring goals for me. [But] there are different aspects of the game when scoring goals isn’t possible when the ball is deep so then it’s about combining, linking the play, holding the ball up like Kane does. On the field, those are the two distinct variables.

Over the last ten months or so, Biereth has elevated himself to a new level in Austria thanks to his self-assured and evidently positive attitude.

Over the next several years, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the young Dane in one of the top five leagues in Europe. He is an enflamed man.