Sticking to the 4-3-3 system we’ve adopted for the sake of clarity and simplicity, today it’s time to vote for two wide attackers to form part of our front three.
There are plenty of juicy options to choose from, so have fun…
And remember, you can still vote for the other positions in the first five Posts in this series (links available in the ‘Recent Posts’ sidebar below). Tomorrow we’ll vote for the last unfilled role – that of central striker. The results will not be revealed until the full team has been assembled.
Today’s selections:
Samir Nasri
A fractious figure and not loved by the faithful after he decamped to Man City, but Nasri could be a devastating attacker when he put his mind to it. In the first two seasons of this decade, before he left us, he bagged 20 goals from 75 starts.
Theo Walcott
Theo seemed to frustrate a section of the supporter base for long periods, but his stats stack up pretty well. In his final season at Arsenal he scored 19 times from just 28 starts and eight substitute appearances. He scored some memorable goals against the noisy neighbours.
Andrey Arshavin
There was a dreadful spell when Wenger played the diminutive AA as our sole central striker. Needless to say he had a tough time. But cutting in from the left (particularly) or the right he could be lethal. There is always a sense of promise unfulfilled about Arshavin, but how about the 4-4 draw at Anfield where little Andrey scored all four of our goals?
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Wanted to play in central midfield but was generally played wide. He could be excellent but was a little inconsistent and his goal tally could have been better. But he’ll soon have a league champion’s medal at Liverpool.
Gervinho
Gerv the Swerve – strange player. He had plenty of skill but seemed to go to pieces in front of goal and would do anything he could to avoid shooting. However, maybe we just never got the best out of him: he had a significantly better strike rate at Lille before he joined us and also at Roma after he left us.
Lukas Podolski
A real fan favourite (not least because of how bonkers he was), Lukas’s left foot was rocket powered. He never earned the full confidence of Arsene and consequently was in and out of the team. Scored some crackers.
Serge Gnabry
I know he’s highly unlikely to make our team of the decade, but his later exploits at Munich suggest we should have made a bigger effort to hang onto him.
Joel Campbell
The Costa Rican had only limited opportunities at Arsenal but was much appreciated by the fans when he did play. Showed a surprisingly good eye for a defence splitting pass from time to time.
Alex Iwobi
A powerful runner with an occasional eye for goal, but perhaps Alex’s overall awareness was somewhat lacking. Most fans were happy when we got £40m out of Everton for him.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Arrived as a makeweight in the deal that saw Alexis Sanchez go to Man Utd. Had a few good moments early on but seldom imposed himself on games.
Pierre Emerick Aubameyang
An outstanding addition to the squad. Arsene was bizarrely reluctant to use him as a regular starter at first, but he eventually established himself as the most reliable scorer in the squad. In the final season of the last decade (2018-19) he netted 31 times in 42 starts in all competitions.
RockyLives
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Where is Alexis Sanchez?
Thank you Rocky, lots to choose from there ……..
Theoooooooooooooooooooo definitely for me. Should have had a bit more coaching on how to be a lethal winger, excellent in front of goal, had an amazing time with Sagna behind him but he and Bellerin never quite got it together in the same way. Still doing the business at Everton.
Be back with my other choice ……… cos I’m still thinking 😉
Winyard ………… Alexis is in tomorrow’s selection
Snake like Nasri should be killed because it can bruise out ankle.
I only voted for Auba because i d like to play Sanchez as my other winger and he mostly played on the left for us but also through the middle… Still i vote for Auba and I will vote for RVP tomorrow 👍
@Peaches and Rasp – maybe we could use the current format of RL wonderful posts to ask about the most disappointing AFC team of the decade? I see the comment regarding Nasri and I am sure that other players could also arouse such passion among your bloggers 😉
I know that Nasri and RVP leaving us really annoyed me and i also wasn’t a big fan of WS antics towards our fan base
Thanks All for voting so far (lots and lots of votes!)
RC & Winyard
Alexis was a tricky one. I was tempted to include him in today’s list but in the end opted for putting him in the central striker vote. Neither is entirely satisfactory.
I would suggest that anyone who feels they can’t pick the team they would ideally like to because of the way the choices have been set out should wait until the grand reveal, then, in comments, propose the team they would like to have been able to select…
Everything wrong about this selection, in my opinion Rocky! Hardly any either played in wide position, or wanted to, or I wanted them to!
So my choices are are slightly flippant.
Arshavin for his “four” smile and upsetting the Scousers and Podolski, because every team should have a Podolski shot in their team!
RC 😀
Even based on this process, we could also reveal the worst team of the decade by putting together the 11 players with the fewest votes…
One interesting thing is that so far (and I haven’t yet looked at the voting for today’s category), I think I’m right in saying that we have not yet had a single player who received zero votes. Which is a surprise to me.
Rocky – wait till you have Chamakh and Sanogo tomorrow 😉 i am looking forward to the grand reveal of both most voted and least voted players
Gueye to be Mikel’s first permanent signing in Summer.
What do you think, RC?
@RL – GREAT POSTS and a big thank you
Echo, echo, echo RC…..great posts Rocky. We all vote for you!
For the decade (from 2010 to 2019), in a 4-3-3.
From this list, my 2 choices are 2 speedsters for the wide forwards:
Theo Walcott (from 2010 to 2018). He plundered 99 goals and dished 62 assists in all competitions for us during this period. He will work well with Sagna on the right hand side in my team.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (from 2018 to 2019). Our current captain and the only active Arsenal player in my team (so far). In just the 1 1/2 seasons leading towards the end of the decade, he already had 41 goals and 12 assists in all competitions with us and was the PL Golden Boot (shared) in 2019. He will work well with Monreal on the left hand side in my team.
My team (continued):
GK. Petr Čech (from 2016 to 2019, 4 seasons)
RB. Bacary Sagna (from 2010 to 2014, 5 seasons)
LB. Nacho Monreal (from 2013 to 2019, 7 seasons)
CB. Laurent Koscielny (from 2011 to 2019, 9 seasons)
CB. Per Mertesacker (from 2012 to 2018, 7 seasons)
DM: Alex Song (from 2010 to 2012, 3 seasons)
CM/AM: Aaron Ramsey (from 2010 to 2019, 10 seasons)
CM/AM: Santi Cazorla (from 2013 to 2018, 6 seasons)
WF: Theo Walcott (from 2010 to 2018, 9 seasons)
WF: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (from 2018 to 2019, 2 seasons)
I like the look of that line-up JM.
I’ll give my own selection (not 100% the same as yours but plenty of cross-over) in comments after the Grand Reveal.
That’s a rag tag bunch isn’t it?
Arshavin because when he was good he was really good.
Walcott because he was with us for so long and had his moments.
A lot of the others I don’t really see as wide attackers. The Ox, Iwobi, Nasri are midfielders. Podolski maybe a no.10. Gnabry fitted but hardly got a chance. Gervinho, well…
Agree with above comments that Sanchez should be here.
PEA is a CF but not better than Robin.
No apologies for putting Nasri in this category. He invariably played as a right-sided attacking player.
Admittedly he played less wide than, say, Theo Walcott and was also capable of coming central and contributing to the attack that way, he mostly played in line-ups where the midfield consisted of, say, Song-Cesc-Wilshere or Song/Denilson-Cesc-TR7.
Podolski, on the other hand, would have been much happier playing as a No 10 but in his time at Arsenal he was usually used as a left-sided attacker – so it’s on that basis that he’s on today’s list.
Gueye is staying at Psg unless a bigger club like Real, Barcelona, Bayern, Juve, Liverpool or City come knocking. No chance we will let him leave this summer unless one of these big clubs comes with 80 to 100 Mln and i think he s gonna stay at least 2 more years with us…
What blasphemy is this no Sanchez, surely he needs to be added to the poll
thing some additional information need to be added to the post
Nasri played 3 season for us and in all competition played 126 games scored 27 goals and 16 assist (0.21 goals per game)
Theo played 13 season for us and in all competition played 399 games scored 108 goals and 78 assist (0.27 goals per game)
Arshavin played 5 season for us and in all competition played 145 games scored 31 goals and 46 assist (0.21 goals per game)
Ox played 6 season for us and in all competition played 198 games scored 20 goals and 32 assist (0.10 goals per game)
Forehead played 2 season for us and in all competition played 63 games scored 11 goals and 12 assist (0.17 goals per game)
Podolski played 3 season for us and in all competition played 82 games scored 31 goals and 17 assist (0.38 goals per game)
PEA played 2.5 season for us and in all competition played 92 games scored 57 goals and 13 assist (0.62 goals per game)
Alexis played 4 season for us and in all competition played 166 games scored 80 goals and 45 assist (0.48 goals per game)
Alexis played 4 season for us and in all competition played 166 games scored 80 goals and 45 assist (0.48 goals per game)
Morning all. Great idea to keep us occupied in the interlull Rocky. What amazes me when you set out the choices is just how many of them I pick but I’m thinking, wow, they were ok and I’ll pick one but is that really the best we had? I’m not intentionally being negative either, but picking Arteta at DM is purely because he had positional sense and discipline, which you couldn’t say about any of the others (possibly Torreira but we haven’t really seen enough of him). Same with Cesc in midfield, fablulous and (mostly) loyal player, but we were never likely to challenge the best in Europe with him.
I think whatever team ends up being picked, it will be a fairly mediocre top 4 team with a couple of favorites. Which is a sad indictment of out last decade.
The striker will be probably one of 3 world class players in the team and he was a Judas!!!
So let’s look forward to the next decade and see what Mikel can do.
Disagree mike with RVP, PEA and Alexis (if he even make it to the polls) we could outscore any side regardless how week the defense is
Peaches how can alexis be in tomorrow section when he played majority of his time as a winger even Theo played at striker but you have him as a winger
Alexis has played 80 games as a LW, 25 at RW, 37 at CF, 17 CAM, 7 as second striker thats 105 game on the wing
Great stuff, Rocky L. Please also publish the team made up of the second placed players as that possibly will be our strongest (but slightly less popular) team. Keep up the good work!!
Great work once again thank you Rocky.
It was an easy choice for me. AA because he was a fun packed mini maestro … and Auba because he’s simply the best player of the lot.
Corentin Tolisso will be sold by Bayern this summer. If he can avoid injuries, this 25 yo player would be a great acquisition to replace Xhaka at the right price. Great passing range, decent shot, good projection towards goal, good at tackling but a bit slow. With Torreira next to him, he could be a great fit in a system with a double pivot.
RC
Pape Gueye – Le Havre.
So Fred, you dont think Alexis should be regarded as winger?
Sorry VP to cut you off …………… Fred usually has a look at old comments when he has a chance so he’ll probably answer you later.
Morning all
We have a New Post …………..
He is a winger VP
MY CHOICE REMAINS THEO AND PODI
I PREFER THEO AND POLDI
Nice one Emmanuel. Check in tomorrow and you’ll find out how many people agree with you.
Thanks for voting.