Arsenal: Surprise, surprise – Alexis Sanchez still not a striker

Arsene Wenger decided that Arsenal’s record signing was not worthy of this match and started Alexis Sanchez in his stead. Can we get dumber?

I was willing to give it a shot. This Arsenal starting XI was like nothing I had imagined prior to the match, but I was willing to put aside my doubts and see if Arsene Wenger had some sort of grander plan at work here.

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The big change was Alexandre Lacazette being thrown to the bench. Our leading goal scorer. Set aside. After showing such fantastic combo play with Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez.

And in the Frenchman’s stead came Alexis. Who has been proven time and time again as being an inadequate striker. By inadequate, I mean that it’s a position that simply does not play to his strengths.

Lacazette had to, had to be be immensely disappointed by this decision and he was vindicated when he came on in the 55th minute and promptly thumped home a goal to pull back to 2-1. Just like that, the Gunners were in with a shout.

To see him turn the tides like that begs the question of what he could have been doing all match, but that isn’t the point of this article. The point is to ask why in the hell Alexis was given the sole striker role.

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Alexis is not and has never been a sole striker. And if you had any lingering doubts, just go back and watch him lose the ball eleven – eleven  – times. It’s the kind of number that would see anyone else benched for a month, but not this man.

Still, I can’t fault Alexis. He isn’t a striker. He just isn’t. He is a good candidate for a secondary striker, but Wenger refuses to play two strikers, so we will never know.

What you get out out of Alexis playing striker is an attacking midfielder playing out of position. Yet rather than adjust and play striker, he continues ti play attacking midfield. So essentially Arsenal had six midfielders on the pitch at the Etihad. Which made set pieces and crosses futile and, to put it bluntly, damn stupid.

Decisions like this truly baffle me. We’ve just seen the trio work so well up front and rather than go with what you know works, you go with what you know hasn’t worked.

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Eleven times. And that doesn’t even include the awful passing. Alexis was terrible today. It was an awful decision to start him there and Wenger should be ashamed.