It has been obvious to Arsenal fans for many weeks that Alexis Sanchez has been suffering from a serious drop in his form and his output for the team, and the stats have backed these thoughts up. But Arsene Wenger still refuses to drop him or even give him a rest so he can recover a little, and yet again the Chilean looked like a shadow of his former self against West Ham last night.
So at last Wenger was finally if he thought that Sanchez was having a dip in form, and he replied: “It’s difficult to say that but he tried tonight, he did fight. It was difficult because they defended very well too.
“He is [very ambitious] but in situations like that, you do not want to focus on one player. You focus more on the collective attitude of the team to keep them focused on the quality of our game. We created chances and that will come back.”
Wenger obviously thinks that Alexis will also regain his brilliant form, but it is not looking too certain at the moment, and our current glut of games should have been the perfect opportunity to give him a rest…
One player that was relegated to the bench was our record signing Alexandre Lacazette. We are used to Wenger not allowing him to play for the full 90 minutes, but the Boss has finally admitted that the French international has been played with an injury. He revealed: “Lacazette, despite all that was said, I played him a little bit with his groin problem and I don’t want to go overboard.
“Olivier Giroud is doing very well.
“Many times I’ve repeated that, it’s not irregular.
“For me, Giroud is a regular and, yes, he came on the other day and gave us a point again.”
Giroud always does well as a sub, but he doesn’t seem to be half as hungry or effective when he starts a game, and so it proved again last night, as he doesn’t play so well as a lone striker. He always scores when Wenger is chasing a game and puts five strikers on the pitch for the last 20 minutes!
We can only hope that Lacazette is back and fit for next week’s game against Liverpool. I’m sure Giroud can handle the Newcastle game, which we absolutely definitely MUST win!
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