Credits: Metro
What about those wins against Chelsea and Basel – scintillating stuff in games when we needed to be up for it. For Chelsea, particularly, it was a huge downer on their confidence, and a huge step forward for this Arsenal team.
First up, Chelsea. Probably the best thing about this win was how easy it felt. Despite their current form, Chelsea are a top team with some excellent players and in Antonio Conte, a manager who’s very highly rated as of late. Apart from missing John Terry, there wasn’t much wrong with this Chelsea outfit, and even if we’d have lost, it would have been understandable to some degree.
But to win – and to win in that fashion must have felt something special to the players, for it certainly did to us. The Gary Cahill early mistake that had shades of Terry’s ‘slip-up’ back in 2011, the swashbuckling pass-and-move that left Thibaut Courtois stranded as Theo Walcott tucked the ball in, Mesut Ozil ruining N’Golo Kante’s professional career before combining with Alexis Sanchez and scoring; all moments to cherish in what will go down as one of the games of Arsenal’s season.
A lot of players have been terrific for Arsenal over these past two games. I was particularly chuffed to see Ozil among them, although not hugely surprised to see Alexis make the grade too. He’s been an important player for Arsenal this season, perhaps the most important man. His contribution against Basel made it five goals and five assists for him in around eight games, which is remarkable considering the positions he’s been asked to operate in.
Playing as the lone striker on Saturday and Wednesday, he was tireless and all over Chelsea’s and Basel’s defenses. Olivier Giroud would not have gotten the goal Alexis did against Chelsea, because despite the pros he offers to our game, he doesn’t have the tenacity or the pace to execute what Sanchez did.
It was another example in a list of examples where the 27-year-old has been on the spot for us. Again, it’s worth noting that most of his goals have come despite playing in the center forward role, a position that is widely perceived not to suit him. And look, one can talk all about Alexis having adaptability issues as a striker, and for the most part I find those concerns understandable. His movement, one could argue, is not quite right. Alexis tends to stray deeper in search of the ball than make driving runs into the opposite direction, negating the whole point of having a quick, Aguero-esque striker. In addition, his earlier tendencies of taking shots from outside the box have dwindled (imposed by Wenger?), taking away another quality from the perfect picture of the world-class striker we’ve had in our minds since Robin van Persie left.
But the bottom line is, he’s gotten a truckload of goals and assists this season for Arsenal. He’s our most prolific player at the moment, almost regardless of having being asked to play in a relatively unknown position. That, in itself, is something that drowns out the possible negatives of Alexis shifting from the flanks.
Goal-assist ratios are the first statistic people look at to gauge the success of a striker. They are perhaps the only statistic worth looking at. Interceptions made, pass percentages and shots on target mean zilch if the striker in question fails to score. I think that point alone concludes that we are not allowed to look at Sanchez’s role as a center forward as anything other than a massive success.
Wenger was pretty much in prototype stage by playing Sanchez as a striker. And while it’s true that he has carried out pet projects with Thierry Henry and van Persie of the same ilk, it feels to me that realizing Alexis’ true potential was more of an accidental than the result of a brainwave.
I’m not sure if it’s something Arsene Wenger planned, for otherwise the €17m purchase of Lucas Perez would have been nonsensical. Ever since, the Spaniard has not gotten any discernible amount of games. Maybe it’s a case of Wenger bedding him in like he’s done with Granit Xhaka, but there may be more to it than meets the eye. Is it possible that Wenger may have seen his panic-purchased striker week-in-week-out in training and wondered if he made a mistake? There were moments in the beginning of the month where it would have been conducive to start Perez, moments which Wenger chose to play a predominant winger than his new signing. That decision has obviously been spot on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was borne out of a need to keep Perez on the peripheries a little bit. He’s done it with Park chu Young before, and it’s a point worth considering.
Anyway, I digress. Regarding Sanchez, one could say that he’s a bit rough around the edges, but as of now, has done more than enough to warrant a start in the coming games. He’s the best ‘internal solution’ we have, and if the structure of Arsenal’s attacking setup suits him, so be it. He could reach different levels of class in that role. Maybe then his self-made comparisons to Messi and Ronaldo won’t sound so bizarre.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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