Continuing from the last post where I spoke about Giroud and Danny, here I would love to talk about 2 other players, who have in some feature, played as the central striker and could do so in the future as well.
3. Theo Walcott
3. Theo Walcott
Another player, who like Giroud divides opinion aplenty here at Arsenal. From being booed and then cheered in the same match, from being an overrated useless player to being one of Arsenal's best, talk about Theo Walcott and you will not hear anything but the extremes.
A contract rebel people call him, earning 100k a week people say he does not deserve. But how good/bad is Theo?
Theo joint the club in the 2005/06 winter window for a 5 million rising to 12 million Euros deal as a 16 year old. He joint with extremely high expectations, the fee was astronomical for a 16 year old yet to prove himself.
He would go on to join the national team for the 2006 World Cup without playing a single game for the country. Again things like this only built expectation.
Expectation he partly fulfilled, with some exciting performances as a substitute. 1 particular run against Liverpool in the Champions League, assisting Adebayor is fondly remembered even today.
After a while it seemed like he just did not improve, he would even earn names such as "headless chicken" from so many so called pundits. There would be some positives still, especially the game when he came on as a substitute against Barcelona, and they had no clue how to deal with his pace.
Guardiola even told after the game, the only way to stop him would be with a gun. Quiet some praise from a manager of that stature. Even van Persie would keep asking fans to show faith in a player who he promised would be a 20 goals a season player.
Even that did arrive. Van Persie left the club and Theo stood up for the team, scoring 21 goals and assisting a further 15 in the 2012/13 season in 43 appearances. The hope of his unfulfilled potential started to rise again.
This was a player, whose pace and timing of runs seemed world class, always getting into the right positions. Finishing never was good enough, till the 2012/13 season. Since then the composure has risen, to an extremely high level and he has turned alongside Podolski as one of the best finishers in the club.
Playing as a wide forward during the 2012/13 season his statistics are rather interesting.
A contract rebel people call him, earning 100k a week people say he does not deserve. But how good/bad is Theo?
Theo joint the club in the 2005/06 winter window for a 5 million rising to 12 million Euros deal as a 16 year old. He joint with extremely high expectations, the fee was astronomical for a 16 year old yet to prove himself.
He would go on to join the national team for the 2006 World Cup without playing a single game for the country. Again things like this only built expectation.
Expectation he partly fulfilled, with some exciting performances as a substitute. 1 particular run against Liverpool in the Champions League, assisting Adebayor is fondly remembered even today.
After a while it seemed like he just did not improve, he would even earn names such as "headless chicken" from so many so called pundits. There would be some positives still, especially the game when he came on as a substitute against Barcelona, and they had no clue how to deal with his pace.
Guardiola even told after the game, the only way to stop him would be with a gun. Quiet some praise from a manager of that stature. Even van Persie would keep asking fans to show faith in a player who he promised would be a 20 goals a season player.
Even that did arrive. Van Persie left the club and Theo stood up for the team, scoring 21 goals and assisting a further 15 in the 2012/13 season in 43 appearances. The hope of his unfulfilled potential started to rise again.
This was a player, whose pace and timing of runs seemed world class, always getting into the right positions. Finishing never was good enough, till the 2012/13 season. Since then the composure has risen, to an extremely high level and he has turned alongside Podolski as one of the best finishers in the club.
Playing as a wide forward during the 2012/13 season his statistics are rather interesting.
So what is your say on that Gooners? Theo in 12/13 and Alexis in 14/15. What are the similarities? Both played majorly as wide players, at times featuring as central strikers.
If Alexis is world class, what was Theo in that season? How do fans put down players so easily? We are a fan base who should be the most patient, waiting 9 years for a trophy. But how short is our memory to put down Theo as not good enough? Imagine him going to say City, who are desperate for home grown players and gets back to this form. Then who would you blame? The manager?
Theo's shot accuracy is slightly better than Alexis, but he averaged 0.55 goals every 90 in comparison to Alexis's 0.49 and gave 0.39 assists in comparison to 0.24 by Alexis. In the 2 main statistics of a forward he has done better than Alexis. Still not good enough? Well consider this, Alexis has had an in form Ozil, Santi and Ramsey to feed from but Theo that season had a completely out of form Rambo, a newly joined player in Santi and no Ozil and still fared better than Alexis. Feeling guilty about criticizing him now at least? Thought so.
The only problem with Theo is his dribbling ability. Playing out wide he can use his pace and the touch line to go past players, but up front he can't do that. Also his hold up play is extremely poor and his aerial ability is, terrible to be kind.
So if I had to call him a type of striker, he would be what one calls a poacher. Be it out wide pr up front, watch a game in which Theo starts and he will have atleast 1 clear cut chance. This is because of his timing of runs, which is one of the best I have ever seen. His finishing still lets him down at times, but that chance will appear.
This has been a season in which Theo has come back from a knee injury and made his mark firstly with his hattrick and then a FA Cup final goal.
It would be meaningless to consider his stats this season as he has barely featured, but one statistic stood out for me that I felt had to be shared. This season, in the league Theo has had a shot accuracy of 75% which is remarkably high. That one statistic coupled with his take ons being rather poor just shows you he is exactly the fox in the box that we have needed over the years.
Theo has to be the first ever Englishman to be criminally underrated. When you see the sort of numbers flying around for a player like Sterling it makes you wonder.
If Alexis is world class, what was Theo in that season? How do fans put down players so easily? We are a fan base who should be the most patient, waiting 9 years for a trophy. But how short is our memory to put down Theo as not good enough? Imagine him going to say City, who are desperate for home grown players and gets back to this form. Then who would you blame? The manager?
Theo's shot accuracy is slightly better than Alexis, but he averaged 0.55 goals every 90 in comparison to Alexis's 0.49 and gave 0.39 assists in comparison to 0.24 by Alexis. In the 2 main statistics of a forward he has done better than Alexis. Still not good enough? Well consider this, Alexis has had an in form Ozil, Santi and Ramsey to feed from but Theo that season had a completely out of form Rambo, a newly joined player in Santi and no Ozil and still fared better than Alexis. Feeling guilty about criticizing him now at least? Thought so.
The only problem with Theo is his dribbling ability. Playing out wide he can use his pace and the touch line to go past players, but up front he can't do that. Also his hold up play is extremely poor and his aerial ability is, terrible to be kind.
So if I had to call him a type of striker, he would be what one calls a poacher. Be it out wide pr up front, watch a game in which Theo starts and he will have atleast 1 clear cut chance. This is because of his timing of runs, which is one of the best I have ever seen. His finishing still lets him down at times, but that chance will appear.
This has been a season in which Theo has come back from a knee injury and made his mark firstly with his hattrick and then a FA Cup final goal.
It would be meaningless to consider his stats this season as he has barely featured, but one statistic stood out for me that I felt had to be shared. This season, in the league Theo has had a shot accuracy of 75% which is remarkably high. That one statistic coupled with his take ons being rather poor just shows you he is exactly the fox in the box that we have needed over the years.
Theo has to be the first ever Englishman to be criminally underrated. When you see the sort of numbers flying around for a player like Sterling it makes you wonder.
The mere fact that Sterling and Walcott were mentioned in the same swap deal is laughable. If Sterling is worth the 30-40 millions being thrown around, a look at the stats makes you wonder what Theo should be worth.
4. Alexis Sanchez
4. Alexis Sanchez
Moving on to the next option, our Chilean wonderboy Alexis Sanchez. He joint us last summer, rejecting a higher pay from Liverpool. A season after signing Real's number 10 we just went on to sign Barca's number 9.
This season he has basically stolen the show for most of it. Be it spectacular free kicks, long range beauties, dribbling etc he has shown it all. Barring a small patch of poor form mid season, he kicked on towards the end again.
He won the PFA fans player of the year and has been the closest to being the best player alongside Hazard. Also some of his link up play with Ozil has been mouth watering to watch.
Considering we are talking about strikers positions to fill, let us have a look at how the Chilean has performed centrally. This season he has played 4 times as the lone forward and failed to score or assist even once, he has played 4 times as the deep lying forward when we did switch to a 4-4-2 in between the season and he scored 6 times, probably proving he cannot perform as the lone forward and also proving that as a part of 2 strikers is when he seems to be at his best. Even for his country he plays as a part of a 2 striker team and has performed admirably for them.
This season, the Chilean has scored 24 goals and assisted 9, probably deserves to be our player of the season as well. He would seem a Suarez type of player with his work rate and dribbling style, he has a decent aerial winning rate as well (assisting Theo in the final for example), but his hold up play is simply not good enough for a lone striker.
Maybe he can improve that and should he do so, we will have a world class striker that we are looking for. Imagine if he produced these stats as a central striker, the fans would have been happy wouldn't they?
Let us make a small comparison between Alexis and Hazard, in my opinion the 2 best players in the league.
This season he has basically stolen the show for most of it. Be it spectacular free kicks, long range beauties, dribbling etc he has shown it all. Barring a small patch of poor form mid season, he kicked on towards the end again.
He won the PFA fans player of the year and has been the closest to being the best player alongside Hazard. Also some of his link up play with Ozil has been mouth watering to watch.
Considering we are talking about strikers positions to fill, let us have a look at how the Chilean has performed centrally. This season he has played 4 times as the lone forward and failed to score or assist even once, he has played 4 times as the deep lying forward when we did switch to a 4-4-2 in between the season and he scored 6 times, probably proving he cannot perform as the lone forward and also proving that as a part of 2 strikers is when he seems to be at his best. Even for his country he plays as a part of a 2 striker team and has performed admirably for them.
This season, the Chilean has scored 24 goals and assisted 9, probably deserves to be our player of the season as well. He would seem a Suarez type of player with his work rate and dribbling style, he has a decent aerial winning rate as well (assisting Theo in the final for example), but his hold up play is simply not good enough for a lone striker.
Maybe he can improve that and should he do so, we will have a world class striker that we are looking for. Imagine if he produced these stats as a central striker, the fans would have been happy wouldn't they?
Let us make a small comparison between Alexis and Hazard, in my opinion the 2 best players in the league.
The only places Hazard over takes him are chances created and successful take ons, that too slightly. The difference is with Hazard winning the league, that got him the PFA award, had we won it, 100 percent Alexis would have got the award.
I could go on about us having more options like Podolski,Campbell both on the back of highly unsuccesful loan spells which would certainly see them sold and a youngster like Chuba Akpom or Sanogo (both not proven enough to discuss) but the point is quiet clear. We have 1 target man, 1 poacher, 1 complete forward and a mix of all in Danny Welbeck. As much as I would love us to sign a striker with the number of options we have, it seems highly unlikely we would do so unless we sold 1 of these 4.
Also rumours suggest we have a 50 million budget and more pressing needs like a goalkeeper and another defensive midfielder should be first priorities.
Also in the next post in this discussion, I will compare our options with the players being linked and maybe we all can see who is that striker who will upgrade us and who are just big name players who fail to perform regularly.
I could go on about us having more options like Podolski,Campbell both on the back of highly unsuccesful loan spells which would certainly see them sold and a youngster like Chuba Akpom or Sanogo (both not proven enough to discuss) but the point is quiet clear. We have 1 target man, 1 poacher, 1 complete forward and a mix of all in Danny Welbeck. As much as I would love us to sign a striker with the number of options we have, it seems highly unlikely we would do so unless we sold 1 of these 4.
Also rumours suggest we have a 50 million budget and more pressing needs like a goalkeeper and another defensive midfielder should be first priorities.
Also in the next post in this discussion, I will compare our options with the players being linked and maybe we all can see who is that striker who will upgrade us and who are just big name players who fail to perform regularly.