There is no doubt that Arsenal are knocking in the goals with alarming regularity, with December being a brilliant example with 12 goals in the 3 games so far. We all know that this is a great improvement over last season when we had Olivier Giroud (or Theo Walcott at times) as our main centre-forward. This season we now have an abundance of options, and Sanchez and Lucas (who hardly plays at all) both getting hat-tricks this month. Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mesut Ozil have also been getting on the scoresheet regularly. We have already amassed 36 goals from our 15 League games and an amazing 58 in all competitions, and we are not even halfway through the season yet!
Arsene Wenger feels that this impressive improvement is thanks to Alexis Sanchez movement whilst being fluid in the centre-forward role. “At the moment our goalscoring record depends on the quality of our movement and the quality of our passing,” he said. “We have a guy up front who doesn’t stay up there, he likes to come deep to make passes for the runners.
“That’s as well why I play with runners like Walcott, who can come and fill in in these positions. We can come a little bit from everywhere and with the quality of the passing behind, that explains certainly why we can score goals.”
You could even say that we don’t really have a concrete centre-forward any more, as while Sanchez is moving back into midfield to get the ball, then other players like Walcott, Ozil and the Oz are moving into the centre to replace him, like a rotating diamond formation. It definitely causes opposing defences more confusion as they don’t know who to concentrate on, whereas last season Giroud was very one dimensional and was usually left to be the target man on his own.
So do you agree with Wenger that our improved goalscoring record is all down to Alexis’ contributions?
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