Arsenal: It’s time to unleash the three-headed monster

Alexandre Lacazette, Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez are yet to play a minute of football with one another. It’s time for Arsene Wenger to unleash Arsenal’s new three-headed monster.

In the freer-flowing, dynamic, faster-paced modern football, it is attackers that win games. Scoring goals, obviously, is the point of the sport, and it is the hardest thing to do. That is why attacking players are so much more valuable and rare than defenders. Consequently, having a potent and productive front three is a necessity for success. That is what Arsenal now have.

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Ever since the departure of Robin van Persie, the Gunners have lacked the clinical, prolific centre-forward that all title-winning sides boast — in the past five seasons, the strikers of the champions have been van Persie (for Manchester United), Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa, Jamie Vardy and Diego Costa again.

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Thankfully Arsene Wenger was aware of such issues, and addressed the weakness by breaking the club-record transfer to sign Alexandre Lacazette, a player famed for his lethal finishing and goalscoring knack. Having been able to keep hold of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, despite their contracts having just one year to run and pressure growing from potential suitors, that now sees the Gunners have one of the deadliest front threes in the Premier League. But they are yet to play a single minute with one another.

Of the three, Ozil and Lacazette have played the most together, 271 minutes in total. That is out of 630 minutes of football so far this season — seven games in all competitions, meaning they have played in 43.0% of the season together. Ozil and Sanchez, meanwhile, have played in just 137 minutes of football alongside one another, equalling just 21.7% of the season. And Sanchez and Lacazette have not played a single minute with the other — Lacazette was brought on against Liverpool at the same time as Sanchez being brought off; the opposite happened against Bournemouth, with Sanchez coming on and Lacazette coming off in the 75th minute; Sanchez replaced Lacazette himself in the 0-0 draw with Chelsea.

That is extremely frustrating. While there are justifiable reasons for such limited playing time — Sanchez entered the season with an injury, missing the first two Premier League games and starting on the bench against Bournemouth and Chelsea; Ozil missed the trip to Chelsea with a knee issue –, to have your three best, attacking players not yet play together, seven games into the season, seems a little backwards.

With West Bromwich Albion coming to the Emirates on Monday night and Arsenal requiring a win to keep pace with the Manchester clubs at the top of the table — they currently sit nine points behind the pair — it is time for Wenger to unleash the front three that cost nearly £130 million. For a manager who does not lavishly invest in players, that is an expensive strikeforce. It is time to exploit it.

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If Arsenal are to have success this season, it will be because of the Sanchez, Ozil and Lacazette. They do not have the hardy defensiveness to grind out the required results; they do not have the controlling, dominating midfield to overwhelm opposing teams. They have an outstanding front three and it’s time to see them be used.