I am still pretty impressed with all the business that Arsenal did during the summer transfer window. I will leave the argument about whether Arsene Wenger should be strung up by his toes for failing to sign a powerful central midfielder or another dfender for another time.
But Calum Chambers has done well at both right back and in the centre of defence, especially for a 19-year old new to a big club like Arsenal. Mathgieu Debuchy was starting to look good until his early career as a Gunner was unluckily brought to a halt with his ankle injury and the same could be said of our Colombian keeper David Ospina.
Also we have already seen that Danny Welbeck has great potential in his new role as a central striker with Arsenal, including the first hat-trick of his football career. But the 23-year old has not been quite as influential in the last two games away to Anderlecht and Sunderland and we have had to rely on Alexis Sanchez, by far the best signing that Wenger made this summer.
So it’s no surprise that there has been plenty of praise for the Chile international from his team mates on Arsenal.com, from Welbeck, from the Ox and from the captain Mikel Arteta.
Welbeck said, “It’s a pleasure to play with Alexis. He’s persistent, he keeps going and they are [the attributes of] somebody I like to play alongside.”
Chamberlain said, “He’s a world-class player – everyone saw that at the World Cup. He’s proved that and he’s played for Barcelona where we’ve all seen what he’s done.
“He’s an unbelievable player and part of his game is his character and his hard work – that’s where he’s got both his goals from today.
“He reminds me of Luis Suarez when he chases everything down and he makes nothing into something. He’s done that for us twice today and he’s scored goals at important times for us.”
And Arteta said, “We wanted to give a bit more freedom to Alexis, playing a bit behind Danny [Welbeck], more like a 4-4-2, which we haven’t played for a while. It worked – I think Alexis did very well today so we’re happy for him.
“His confidence is high. Physically he’s better, you can see that by the runs he was making in the 93rd minute, [when he] chased the keeper and kept going. That’s all about him – he wants to keep going, he wants to improve and he’s doing very well.”
But as well as appreciating Alexis and helping him to play to his strengths, I think it is vital that the other players do not just assume that he will win the game for us. We need the other Gunners to step up to his level as much as possible. But will they?