Arsenal - Outdated style of attack?

Hello everyone. I am back with another criticism of how bad we are not just in defence but also in how we build our attack. I felt strange writing this as hardly anyone discuss about how we build our attack and generally not many critics are out there having a go at our attacking style. So thought I may well put this out in front of you:

“Our defence is woeful yes! But our style of attack is even more pathetic.”

Before you all jump on me, let me justify my stance here.

Wingers where are they?

Anyone care to point out even one proper out and out winger in our squad? Oh no we don’t have any one to begin with. It should come as a shock to everyone that we literally have 0 wingers in our squad (not counting the fringe players).

Ok let’s try to make a case for somebody. Iwobi? Probably the closest to what we have right now. Lack of wide options may well explain why he gets into our first 11 so much despite his goals/assists output being so low as a wide player. Oh but we have Welbeck who can play wide. First of all he is injured for the season, second he is a striker who can play left or right also but you can’t term him a winger though. Mkhitariyan anyone? Again a central player who can be adjusted to play out wide.

So you see we don’t have anyone who can take on players one on one, beat a man or dribble past some of them or put in a peach of a cross or score a finesse goal (you know the type of goals we try to score on FIFA :p). We are overloaded with similar type of diminutive central midfielders likes of Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey, Mkhitariyan who all are good on the ball and can pick a pass but can’t drive past players or carry the ball into the final third.

No stretching the defence by running onto channels:

We have so called two world class strikers having pace and power in abundance. But do we use them to full potential? Of course a big NO. Our strikers are always coming in short to have the one-twos or the flicks here and the dummies there. The opposition defence can see out the whole game in front of them without breaking a sweat!

Why don’t our strikers make runs in behind the defence more often? Why our suppliers can’t seem to pick up the run even when they do make such a run? Why our strikers don’t run the channels often enough and stretch their defence pulling out their centre back’s natural positions? Why can’t our midfielders pick out our strikers with lobbed passes from the middle? Why can’t we attack the box with lobbed through balls and overload the box with more bodies forward?

If we look at how the likes of Spurs, or Liverpool or even City attack, they not only attack the box with conventional crossing but also from the middle they bypass the opposition’s midfield by spraying lobbed through balls from the middle of the park. Even if the ball doesn’t reach its intended target, they more often than not pick up the second balls from the clearance and overload the box again with bodies forward and also with the ball.

Reality is we are too predictable and only want to play one way, that is pass our way to a goal. Too many unnecessary one-twos, the flicks and the dummies that results in loosing possession high up the pitch and then getting countered like a knife through butter.

No directness in our play whatsoever:

We over complicate our attack, don’t play direct football at all, don’t take risks to beat a man one on one (much to do with lack of right personnel like having 0 wingers you know), don’t put enough crosses into the box to trouble the opposition’s defence, don’t take enough shots from outside the box (hell many times I saw our players trying to pass the ball when inside the opposition’s box instead of taking the shots!).

If I were to summarize my reservations against our style of attack, I could finger out the following:

• 0 wingers in the squad.
• 0 width (as a result of 0 wide players).
• 0 players who can beat a man 1 on 1.
• 0 crosses (can’t remember the last time we scored a headed goal not from a corner or a free kick).
• 0 channel play (no stretching the play by running onto channels by our so called 2 world class strikers having pace and power in abundance).
• 0 directness (the most obvious reason why our attack looks so toothless despite having creative players)

End game? Woeful defence (obvious as we don’t have the right personnel in defence) but even woeful style of attack.