Arsenal: Tremendous Three going same way as Fab Four

Arsenal’s first choice front three isn’t as clear as it was at the start of the season, which is strange, seeing as how it’s going the same way as the Fab Four.

When Arsenal brought in Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in quick succession over a year ago, the headlines were made. Put those two with Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette and you have a front four that no one can contend with.

They became known as the Fab Four, and about 85% of Arsenal twitter users changed their header image to some combination of the four, standing about like action heroes.

Turns out that their combined time at the Emirates was going to be a lot more standing about and a lot less action hero. In fact, I can’t really think of a single time when the Fab Four was clicking, playing together, and succeeding.

Granted, it’s hard to fir those four in the same formation, choosing any of the three brings about similar results. It just didn’t work. Despite the sheer impossibility that so much talent wouldn’t work well together.

Now, this year, with the addition of Nicolas Pepe, we have a Tremendous Three (I made that up… not in love with it) that has been used amply and… has failed amply.

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In a front three with Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe, the Gunners are supposed to have an unstoppable attacking force. Yet they have proved incredibly stoppable all year long. While Aubameyang is hanging in the Golden Boot race, Pepe has struggled to catch on and Lacazette has been missing from action due to injury.

Which is all perfectly explainable. Just give Pepe time to settle and Lacazette time to heal and the Tremendous Three will work, right?

Maybe.

But the Fab Four was much of the same. Injuries got in the way, acclimation got in the way… but in the end, it just never worked. So was it all the external factors, or just the simple fact that it wasn’t as good as it was meant to be?

Hard to say. But the good news is that the Tremendous Three still has plenty of time to sort itself out and prove that they aren’t just the next version of the Fab (failure) Four.

And it that doesn’t work, at least we still have the Dynamic Duo of Lacazette and Aubameyang. That’s a combination that will never fail.