Arsenal Might Be Trying Too Hard To Score

Arsenal scored two goals against Manchester United AND Leicester City, but are the Gunners failing to win consistently because of their over-complicated attacking play?

In Arsenal’s most recent game, a disappointing 3-2 loss to rivals Manchester United, the Gunners benefitted from another great delivery from Mesut Ozil, and a lucky rebound that fell to in-form Ozil to score two goals.

Two weeks ago in their last Premier League fixture, Theo Walcott tapped in a great knockdown from Olivier Giroud – another good individual touch, important note – and another great delivery from Ozil gave them the win in the dying moments of the game. Between those two league matches, Arsenal didn’t score a goal

In fact, they have been failing to score with their regular efficiency in recent fixtures, basically in all of their matches (of which there have been nine) after the crazy 3-3 draw with Liverpool in mid-January.

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Perhaps it was Arsene Wenger, encouraging a different approach when going forward in an effort to curb the amount of goals conceded. Perhaps it’s more simple, and there are issues with his regular instructions translating onto the field.

Either way, things have looked different in this winter period – as they often do for Arsenal – than they did in the first half of the season. Why is that?

First of all, Alexis Sanchez needs to change back into his shooting boots. He needs to take off those extra unnecessary speed boots. Functioning as a microcosm of his team as a whole in this example, Sanchez has only put one goal in the back of the net in his last nine matches for the Gunners.

In many of the aforementioned matches, namely Arsenal’s 0-0 draw with Southampton and their 0-2 home loss to Barcelona, Sanchez has worked extremely hard for the team but failed to make it on the stat sheet. In other games, however, Sanchez has been too energized for his own good and it has resulted in him not being very productive.

In fact, the Chilean has not scored in the Premier League since Arsenal’s emphatic 3-0 away win at Watford – and that was on the 17th of October, 2015.

While on the topic of attacking midfielders, it seems appropriate to discuss the recent disappearance of Theo Walcott’s talent.

Yes, we know. He scored the equalizer in the Leicester City match, which was a huge goal. But Olivier Giroud put it on a plate for him. It was virtually impossible to not smash the ball into the net. Aside from that goal against the Foxes two weeks ago, Walcott has been dismal while on the pitch and hasn’t had a visible effect on a game since he curled in the Gunners’ opener against Manchester City.