Yaya Sanogo, flop or future star.

What comes to your mind when you see or hear the name Yaya Sanogo? Is it future top class player or absolute flop? The Arsenal fan base and also the general Football fanbase certainly have their differing opinions.

Sanogo… Is he a future top class player or absolute flop?

Signed by Arsenal on a free from French second division side Auxerre in July 2013 the Under 20 World Cup winning French international was a relatively unknown player and many people were bemused as to why Arsène Wenger had decided to bring him to the club. The Arsenal manager has always backed him since the day he arrived and had this to say about him after the Frenchman’s very first start for Arsenal against Bayern Munich in the 2-0 loss at the Emirates,

“There’s a potential there. Sanogo is world champion of the Under-20s, if he was an English centre-forward and was world champion of the Under-20s, you would not ask me these questions. It’s as simple as that.

“We look at the quality of the performance of the player, not at the number of minutes he’s played.

“If you only looked at that, nobody would ever get a chance. And up front, it’s not the experience that decides.

“I have to make my decisions with my conscience and I base it on who can help us win the next game. He did not look out of place in the two games he played.”

Since those quotes Sanogo has made 16 competitive appearances for Arsenal Football Club and has scored a grand total of 0 goals. He managed to score 4 goals against Benfica in a pre season friendly against Benfica in the 2014 Emirates Cup to everyone’s surprise and even managed to trend on twitter! He has played in a handful of big games and has 2 pieces of silverware, the FA Cup and the Community Shield most recently.

Bandy legged and very tall, Yaya Sanogo most definitely has a physical presence on the football pitch but is that all he has?.

My own opinion…. physical presence is all the Frenchman has and I personally feel he will never succeed in the cherished Arsenal shirt. He looks to me as most of the time he hasn’t got a clue where he is going and what he is going. To succeed at the highest level you need a world class striker in your squad and for me Sanogo is most certainly not that at the moment and will never be. With young Joel Campbell raring to play and succeed at the club Sanogo may find his opportunities for game time limited this season also.

I’ll be the first to admit that he has had some good performances in an Arsenal shirt, Bayern at home in the champions league and the Fa cup final against Hull in May being 2 of them. I feel mainly in the FA cup final he came on and threw himself and his stature around and changed the game ultimately providing a pass to the assister of Aaron Ramsey’s winning goal.

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But, it’s not enough. Being a striker your main job is to be a goalscorer, to score goals and at Arsenal to finish the flowing passing moves that Arsenal create. He hasn’t scored one goal yet. Not one. I think that tells the whole story in my opinion.

He is young and deserves a chance and with a manger like Arsène Wenger he will get it, and will either prove his critics wrong or give them more evidence to use to back them up

The player whose twitter handle is ironically named @YayaSanogoal22 divided many opinions, so please do feel free to leave yours in the comments below or on Facebook, Google+or Twitter.