Internal Solutions: How can Arsenal cope until they sign their long-awaited striker

 

It has been years and years since Arsenal were crying to get their long-awaited world class striker, Even though Olivier Giroud has been progressing throughout the years and proving his value, his goal tally never exceeded the 16-league goals a season mark during his 4 years that he has been with Arsenal, which isn't ideal for title contenders. 

Arsene Wenger has addressed that and tried to sign players in the calibre of Luis Suarez, but he failed to do so throughout the past 3 summer transfer windows. Criticism came from every corner because of his inability to get a striker signing over the line, and the criticism is totally justified. Even if we agreed that "world class" strikers weren't available in the market for reasonable prices, Arsene should have taken the risk of signing a low-profile striker and foresee his success. But to continue with Olivier Giroud as his leading striker isn't a rational decision at all, as the saying goes: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results". 

Having failed to sign a striker to this date, After he has pursued the likes of Vardy and Ben Yedder during this summer transfer window, and still in talks with Lyon's striker Alexandre Lacazette, its a certainty that Arsenal will at least start their Premier League campaign once again without a new striker. once again Arsene Wenger will have to resolve to internal solutions and evaluate his striking options, so the question in the mean time is how can Arsenal cope until they sign their long-long awaited striker ?

Obviously, signing a striker is one way to cover up your striking shortage, but a second way would be altering another player's position to become a striker and promoting/signing a player in his position. Alexis Sanchez might find himself moved into a more central position as a striker, he's shown that he's capable of playing up top with some of his performances playing for his national team Chile, he has pace, technique, strength, dribbling ability, and even though he is short, he has an incredible leap in him. There is no logical reason to think that he shouldn't better Walcott's performances up top, except for his movement.

Walcott for all his faults, his running behind the defensive lines is second to none. In addition into his lightning fast pace, his timing is absolutely incredible, and when he was in-form during the first third of last year's campaign, he proved to be a good option upfront with Arsenal playing their best football at the time. However, his technique is really inconsistent, probably because of constant injury problems and serious confidence issues, he lost his place to Olivier Giroud and he's yet to find form. Even Walcott has admitted lately that he thinks he's more suited playing on the right now that he experienced how difficult playing the striker role is for him, having said : "I want to make my position on the right, that’s where I know where I am now. I’ve told the manager that I want to be known for playing on the right again, although I can play up front". But can it be that switching the Sanchez-Walcott axis prove to be a masterstroke ?

Sanchez's "psychological profile" makes him demand the ball more, he likes to get into deeper positions in order to receive the ball and bomb forward, which takes him away from goal scoring positions, but at the same time its a blessing in disguise, he drags defenders out of position, adds a body to the midfield, a target through the lines receiving passes from deep, and creating spaces for other players to run into. This has been proven to be the case when Arsene Wenger has actually tried out Alexis up top in the preseason friendly against Man City:

Runners from behind, especially the likes of Ramsey and Theo who are masters of exploiting the space benefited hugely from the spaces created by Alexis's movement, having found themselves in great striking positions. Walcott would thrive as an inside forward and find himself again in this role providing that space might be well created infront of him.  Its not that Alexis can only drop deep to pick up the ball and drag defenders, he as well can make runs in behind as he has done in 2 or 3 occasions during the game and was found by his teammates,  he just needs time his runs properly and to mix up his dropping deep with his runs in behind to create a sense of unpredictability in his game.

Putting Alexis up top would also make our pressing game highly effective, not only because of his pace and his tireless engine and desire, he is a leader, you can actually see him pointing and shouting for his teammates to join him while pressing the back line:

  

Arsenals front line caused many problems to Man City's defense by forcing them into series of errors, pressing effectively does benefit the whole team, not only that you might win the ball high up the pitch in dangerous positions, it also disrupts the build up of the opposition and might force them into long balls, and even though it seems that the pressing task is tiring for the front line, a 10m sprint is actually less painful than a 60m jog back to defend in your own half of the pitch.

Arsenal could alternately sign a creative midfielder instead of a striker and move Alexis up top. Either way, to make up the numbers, they still need to sign a quality forward, whether its in wide positions to replace Alexis or a world class striker. However, they already have decent options within the squad in wide areas especially with the emergence of Alex Iwobi. Arsene Wenger himself acknowledged that this move proved worthy of experimenting when he was talking about Walcott: "We had a good combination with him on the right and Alexis up front". I can see that he will start the upcoming season with this in mind.