Alexis Sanchez was voted to be Arsenal’s Vitality Player of the Month for September, but should Walcott have been the winner?
The Chilean won the award with 39.4% of the fans vote, while Theo picked up the second-most votes with 23.2% of your backing, but interestingly the Premier League Player of the Month award had only one Gunner shortlisted, and the English forward was the one involved.
Walcott has come under increased scrutiny in recent seasons, with many growing frustrated with his continual injury problems and inconsistencies, and his disappointing end to the previous campaign saw him become a martyr to ridicule.
Despite the pressure on him, he has started the new season with a string of impressive displays, and even bagged four goals in the month of September, with Alexis also scoring the same.
One reason for the difference with our player award and the Premier League shortlist could be down to the Champions League matches not reviewed in their analysis, but at the same time, the Basel match was full of missed opportunities for Alexis, while Walcott was the man to bag both of the goals in that match, which should have been more in favour of the latter.
The newly-converted centre forward has now picked up his first Arsenal Player of the Month award of the season, following Laurent Koscielny’s August award.
Walcott is still in the running for the league’s monthly award however, although Heung-Min Son of Tottenham is expected to pick up the award when it is announced, which is likely to be around the October 9.
Granit Xhaka and Arsene Wenger are also in with a great chance of picking up Premier League awards for September in the Goal of the Month and Manager of the Month categories.
Does the Vitality Award tell us that Arsenal fans are too hard on Theo or simply that Alexis is more like-able/favoured by us?
Pat J
Awards are an interesting side line but mean nothing, remember RVP getting the PL golden boot and player of the season? We won nothing and were 19 points off the leaders in the PL.
The only meanigful awards are the PL, CL, FA and league cups.
no
Walcott is a bit unlucky to miss out on that one..they both deserved it so it hard to pick one of them…
About the Basel game, yes Sanchez wasn’t ruthless but he gave perfect passes to Walcott for our goals…
However, am happy Walcott is a different animal this season and I hope he continues like that,if he can he surely get his award.
That’s nothing new with the Arsenal fanbase.
It just goes to show that 23.2% of those voters are knowledgeably open minded, while 39.4% of them are bias and that the rest of them voters (37.4%) are clearly living in a delusional fantasy world. ?
Its funny how when these 3 mental attributes are combined together they make up one Arsene Wenger lol ?
Out of tune? ? Hahaha ?The thumbing down just proved my point! ?
I’m glad the Arsenal fans got it right. Alexis in both goals and assists has been superb so far. Walcott has been ultra clinical which is weird but Alexis simply ticks more boxes. I think in England there has always been a case of over estimating performances by there own nationals. Also you bring up CL football, remember Alexis got that vital goal against PSG, and it was his creativity in the Basel game which lead to the goals, and should have lead to more. Remember Ozil has built himself a world class reputation from being the man who feeds the goalscorers. Alexis is more like an Henry, assisting and scoring. I think some of our fans don’t appreciate him enough, or that is what I thought, I’m glad they say Alexis is the player of the month.
I think one of the reasons why Ozil is not his usual self is that we have players beating him to the punch. When you get a good lead in a match you tend to hold onto it as much as you can, you still get chances but don’t have the same will to finish them. Iwobi Walcott and Alexis have been so dangerous that we’ve been getting early leads. It could be just as simple as that. When we did need Ozil against Burnley his confidence was likely low, and Bur are no push overs.
For me Alexis and Theo are about 50:50. Alexis has been wasteful, often losing possession or failing to pick out a teammate, and he has been tending to drift too deep in order to come and get the ball, leaving the box deserted. Theo on the other hand has often taken up that empty space, hence his brilliant header after a lovely ball from Alexis, and his work rate, tackling back and general intensity have been spot on. It has been very noticeable for most of last season that when Alexis gets the ball he looks for Ozil and often fails to pick out a teammate in a better position. I see some signs that he is starting to trust Theo and Iwobi, and of course we now have Santi back, but I need to see more of this from Alexis instead of him trying to carry the whole Arsenal world on his shoulders. Short answer; yes!
wenger said the reason alexis/theo patnership works well is because when playing in the middle sanchez likes to come from deep taking a defender with him allowing theo to make his runs.
Last season it was Vardy and Mahrez
This season it will be Alexis and Theo
And next season, Griezmann and Kante 😛
next season it ll be Walcott,Alexis and Reus
i know the season has just started but for the people that love to criticize theo for good reasons in the past stop acting childish and admit that the guy,s been playing well of late,when someone proves you wrong be man enough to recognise it plus the team is benefiting too.