I do want to have too much of a go at the Arsenal and Chile international star, but there is no getting around the fact that apart from his comeback as a sub in the 4th round of the FA cup, Alexis Sanchez has been well below the standard that we are used to since returning from his injury lay-off.
As he showed in that comeback game when he provided a the assist for Calum Chambers and then scored a good goal himself to give us a win against Burnley, the Chilean can have a remarkable effect on the Arsenal team. But he has not scored again since and his sharpness in front of goal has been worryingly missing.
The Gunners badly need Alexis Back on form if we are to have any chance of winning the Premier League title this year, so how can Arsene Wenger get him kick started again? Well I think that the return of Danny Welbeck might be one way, especially after the manager played him in the left forward position where Sanchez operates.
Alexis has never really had much competition for his place at Arsenal but the England international looked sharp and that will hopefully keep Alexis on his toes. On Tuesday Alexis faces his former club Barcelona for the first time since his transfer and if that does not spark him into some form, perhaps the fact that Welbeck is waiting to replace him might.
Do you think Arsenal will start to see the old Alexis back soon?
Alexis doesnt need anyone to spark his form reversal. His current form isn’t about not trying hard but quite the opposite, he looks like he is trying too hard to rediscover his form – touch, dribbles, shooting – because in his mind the team desperately needs him.
You don’t bench players like him – you have to let him play himself into form and you have to suck up the below par performances while he gets there. If the rest of the team starts playing well and starts banging in the goals, he would ease the pressure he puts on himself which in my opinion would allow him to keep his game simple at first and then build up the number of “moments of brilliance” match by match.
When he came on vs Hull – he looked to me to be a man on a mission to win the tie all by himself. And that’s the man…he believes he is the man to rescue the team when needed..Alexis looks to me a classic example of someone with a “Messiah/Savior Complex”. Look it up and tell me what you think?
But that’s the type of mentality we need, if more players in our team had the Messiah complex they would’ve eased the burden on him and like you said and he would have much more moments of brilliance due to less pressure. RVP had that complex and he was scoring goals for fun, imagine having a talented striker with that mentality playing alongside Ozil, you wouldn’t see Alexis trying too hard to score because the responsibility of winning a game is shared.
Sanchez is most dangerous
in the big games.
Barca, Utd, Spurs will see
him really fire.
Cech Kos Ozil
where would Arsenal be
with out these champions?
That’s where the problem lies. Wrong positional playing of Welbeck at left-wing did not help us to overcome Hull in the FA Cup match at the Ems last Saturday, had it?
Let me re-say what I have said before. The Boss should start playing Welbeck as a striker to alternate Olivier Giroud in leading the line for the Gunners in the remaining games for Arsenal in all competitions this season. And confine Walcott to be manning the right-wing in conjunction with Oxlade as backup. Sanchez and Campbell should hold the left-wing down as no.1 & 2 choice for that position.
And Ramsey and Coquelin should by now hold down the deep-lying playmaker role( DLP) and defensive midfielder role(DMF) positions as 1st choice pairing by the Boss. And Elneny and Flamini can be made the 2nd choice pairing to manned the Gunners’ base. Cazorla can fight to regain his DLP position when he returned from his injury. The mid-trio playmaker is ofcourse Ozil now backed up by Iwobi as we’ve seen in the FA Cup game against Hull City.
The Boss Gunners 1st choice back 4 which is correct are ofcourse Bellerin, Rhinosacker, Koscielny and Monreal who are backed up by Chambers, De Abreu and Gibbs.
The Gunners positional play should at this stage of the season become stabilized and not to be witnessing the constant changes and deployments of Gunners to manned various positions on the field of play in the team in an experimental ways.
I think the Boss should by now passed that level of experimentation with Gunners position in the team to see how best the individual Gunner can perform in a particular position. This constant experimentation of Gunners in the striker and the wing positions has unbalanced the Gunners playing in their recent games. A situation that has accounted for our middle level performance instead of high level in our recent outings.
For the remaining part of this season, save for any strong reason like injuries or outright loss of form by a particular Gunner that has forced the Boss’ hand to make changes, the list bellow should be my preferred Gunners 1st starting team and backups:
Cech.
BellerinRhino’KoscielnyMonreal.
RamseyCoquelin.
WalcottOzilSanchez.
Giroud.
Backups:
Welbeck as a striker backup.
Oxlade as RW backup.
Iwobi as playmaker backup.
Campbell as LW backup.
Elneny as deep lying playmaker backup.
Flamini as defensive midfielder backup.
Chambers as RB backup.
De Aberu as CHB backup.
Gibbs as LB backup.
And Ospina as backup to Cech.
By this order, every starting and backup Gunners will know his role and permanent position in the team and work to stabilize his position. The likes of Arteta, Adelaide, Macey, and who else can be given occasional run out on the field of play when time and condition permit or warrant to do so by the Boss. I hope the Boss will accept my proposal after scrutinizing it thoroughly.