Quote Originally Posted by Penguin View Post
He has only started five games up front since he came back from his injury and I've picked the two that he was ineffective in. That's hardly cherry picking, and it's no coincidence that those were the matches that he had to deal with the very tactics that people are saying he'd struggle against.

Maybe I am being harsh on him, but the best forwards tend to have more about them rather than relying on one attribute. Players like Aguero and RvP have good movement too, but in those tight games where they don't get the space they need in the danger areas, they both have the tools to do the damage in another way. Whether it's with a bit of skill, a clever turn in the box, dropping a little bit deeper and testing the keeper from long range, they can do it all. I don't see that in Theo at all.

A lot of the time we don't even have the option to pass it to his feet either because he doesn't like playing with his back to goal, and that just ends up making it even harder to find him or to get into good positions. No wonder he vanished at Newcastle; there was no space behind their defence, we couldn't pass it to his feet, and he can't head the ball. It makes a big difference to have someone to play off through the middle to bring your midfielders closer to the goal, especially for a team like ours that criminally under-use the wings.

Right now I agree with you, give Theo a run. But is he a good enough main CF to win us the league? Not sure about that. He'd do well to hit even half the level of some of his predecessors. Back to the drawing board next summer.



PS - I think you're being very generous to Theo if you think he deserves even part of the credit for the goal against Chelsea. That was all Ox
But isn't this a problem we have with Giroud as well? See the West Ham game. We tried to adopt the same concept with Chamakh where we're bouncing passes off him like a wall to bring in our midfield players. That didn't work either. It's a flawed gameplan and why I have doubts about signing a Costa, Cavani or Benzema if we were still to approach games like this. They'd be an upgrade but they don't play in teams that play this style, they don't have that explosive burst or agility so I often wonder if they'd have the same problems. They're too big and bulky. I can only see an RVP, Tevez, Aguero or Suarez type that would suit our play.

We can't get any of those so the next solution is to develop a player. If we won't use Sanchez in that role, then at least give Theo a shot and sharpen him up. You may get the games like Newcastle or Chelsea this season but you may also get the other Newcastle results where he scores a hat trick or the West Brom game. It's better than nothing and as Wenger said himself....

“I know Stoke are a compact, organised team in their own half and Theo could find little pockets to get in their and maybe that you get two or three chances to counter attack at home so maybe you can use that,”
And that's how they played. It was compact and tight but we created chances and it's encouraging to hear that he's seeing things differently or trying something new. Theo was finding the little pockets of space and that's something we won't get from a striker like Giroud. Giroud's role is to hold the ball up so players like Ramsey, Ozil, Cazorla and Wilshere find the small pockets of space. But when those guys are firing blanks or looking for Giroud to find space we get this tippy tappy back and forth. We can't really sacrifice a striker just in hope that players like Ozil and co will find their shooting boots. Even Ramsey is getting deployed on the right simply because Wenger wants him find space to get a shooting opportunity. He makes smart runs but there has to be another way.