Arsenal vs Hull City: One Huge Mistake Arsene Wenger Can Avoid

Arsenal has to return to form against Hull City because a Champions League place is in jeopardy. Here is one massive mistake Wenger must avoid.

Arsenal are actually in a precarious situation. They sit just one point above Liverpool and two points above Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United. Fourth place has never felt so shaky. Especially given their two game losing streak in two matches that essentially knocked them out of title contention.

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Getting back into form is an absolute necessity and something that Wenger can help facilitate if he avoids one key mistake that he made against Chelsea.

Please, for the love of everything, do not start Alexis Sanchez at striker. I know that he had his successes there and even then, I was a convert that believed that Alexis could be a striker. So surely this go around isn’t so different.

But it really is.

It’s all a matter of quality and quantity. Arsenal’s strongest position right now is striker and their strongest player is Alexis. Therefore, to start their strongest player at their strongest position is to eliminate all other strong players at that position, and the Gunners have three. That is, unless Wenger wants to roll out a 4-4-2, which we know he doesn’t.

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Meanwhile, the weakest position, even in light of the midfield drought, may damn well be on the wings. Only Theo Walcott and Alex Iwobi are capable of playing there, since Wenger won’t start Lucas. Waclott disappears with the best of them and Iwobi is still not wholly reliable.

Doesn’t it make far more sense to play your strongest player in the team’s weakest position and allow the teams strongest position to fill itself with a fresh selection of strong players such as Olivier Giroud and Danny Welbeck?

I was pretty upset when Wenger rolled Alexis out into the striker position against Chelsea and it was completely justified. He was suffocated frustratingly and there was no recovering from it. There was no offensive punch and no space to give the ball up front.

Notice how, when Giroud and Welbeck were brought on, things changed. Urgency changed too, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if there wasn’t an effective strike force which didn’t involve Alexis.

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It’s all about playing to your strengths, which should go without saying. Hull City have shown an ability recently to neutralize supposedly stronger opposition so Wenger needs to understand what’s at stake here.