Of the many Arsenal players that were given a chance to shine by Arsene Wenger in the Gunners’ fourth round EFL cup clash with Reading this week, quite a few did themselves and their chances of playing more often the power of good, including Lucas Perez, Carl Jenkinson and Rob Holding, but surely the biggest winner on the night was the scorer of both goals Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who is sure to get the Man of the Match award on Arsenal.com.
Arsene Wenger was clearly impressed by the England international’s performance and he spoke highly of him after the match, as an earlier post on Just Arsenal reported. The Ox also spoke himself and after firing the team into the next round of the cup, he is pushing for more first team action in the other competitions as well.
Chamberlain said, “Yeah, I hope so. Any game that I play in is an opportunity for me to show what I can do. And whether it’s the league, the Champions League, the League Cup or the FA Cup – it’s all important. First and foremost, it’s all game time and it’s good to get your confidence up and to try and play the way you want to play and it’s still a very good standard of football. Reading are a good team, so for me personally, any chance I get to play is an opportunity for me to show and hopefully that form will carry over into the league and be rewarded with more starts.”
The biggest problem he has in that respect is the strong competition in the squad for places, so who would drop out if the boss was to listen to his demands for more games? I would have to say that the favourite was young Alex Iwobi, especially after Wenger suggested that his best position was not out wide but in the number 10 role. He also spoke about the Nigerian’s need to improve his finishing while praising the Englishman for the same thing.
Chamberlain played in the middle against Reading but he usually plays on one of the flanks and the manager also said after the game that he and Theo Walcott can operate well together on either side, so is the Ox going to get his wish at the expense of Iwobi?
Bob.
I would give starts to both Ox and Iwobi depending on who is most fit etc. Ox is just beginning to regain some confidence and there should be plenty of games in the busy schedule.
Maybe. Iwobi is going through a slight funk atm. Ox has the same problem though, but on a larger scale. This isn’t his first “false dawn.” Iwobi has been part of our winning formula though, so I’d still start him against Sunderland.
Still go with Iwobi, when he wants to he can dribble through players and make em look bad. He just needs the finishing product as wenger indicated, once he discovers that he’ll be terrorizing defenses.
Iwobi has been playing well and part of a winning team as mentioned but “adding goals to your game” is something that may happen over many months or years not weeks, unless of course he was a regular goal scorer at the lower levels
Stick with Iwobi!! Are you saying you drop Iwobi bcoz he doesnt score atm?! what about his creative part of the game?if teams packs a bus, do you thnk Ox will be that much creative?! Atm Ox is better off as a super sub
Would still start with Iwobi. At the moment, Giroud, Ramsey & Oxlade-Chamberlain look like the perfect combination of players to throw on if we ever find ourselves chasing a goal in the last 20 minutes.
if it isn’t broken don’t fix it and forget the goals, Ox still has parts of his game he needs to work on like being consistent during games (Reading game shows he still lacks this) also knowing how to give a simple accurate pass, against Ludogorets he couldn’t make his pass to Walcott accurate even when both were close to the 8yard box n barely 5yards from one another.