Arsenal: Alexis Sanchez Is Not An Experimental Toy
Arsenal yet again rolled out a formation with Alexis Sanchez as the sole striker and we have to start wondering why Wengeris experimenting with the Chilean.
My first thought on seeing Arsenal‘s Starting XI against PSG was a single word: “Why?” Why would Wenger seriously attempt to put Alexis at the front of the formation again when he had two healthy strikers on his bench and no need to get cute and creative.
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“He has similar qualities [to Suarez and Aguero]. And he has a good timing to run behind the defenders,” Wenger had said about Alexis, thoroughly expressing his want to turn Alexis into the next great South American striker. So we have a motive but not necessarily an explanation of why, all of a sudden, he wants this to happen.
Alexis gets completely suffocated when he plays up front against a back four and, being someone with an insatiable work rate, he needs to touch the ball and therefore abandons his position and comes back to the midfield, where he can field the ball more. In the process, Arsenal are left without a striker and without a focal point in the attack.
Alexis is not of the same mindset as Suarez or Aguero. He does more than score goals and he needs more room to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. There is absolutely no reason for Wenger to try to transform our talented Chilean into anything he isn’t already.
I get the want to transform Walcott. He’s always wanted to be a striker and Arsenal needed options. Plus, Walcott was never in the upper-echelon of footballers.
Alexis is. He is a world class attacking midfielder and to move him into that striker role removes him from his world-class-ness.
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What happened against PSG is the prime example. Alexis was put up front and Arsenal looked helpless. Nothing was working and nothing ever even looked like it was going to work. Literally the moment Giroud came on and pushed Alexis out wide, everything changed. Suddenly Alexis had room to create, he had room to sneak into the box and, lo and behold, that covertness allowed him to get in a position to score a goal and save the day.
Alexis does not score that goal if Giroud doesn’t come on. He would not even be in that position had Giroud not come on.
The experimenting has to end. Lucas and Giroud are both here and capable of playing striker. Meanwhile, both of those strikers will benefit from Alexis being used out wide and the Chilean himself will benefit from it too.
Problem resolved, let’s move on to our next experiment.