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Wenger Gives Insight Into Where Sanchez Will Play For Arsenal

By on July 18, 2014

Arsene Wenger has been speaking about new signing Alexis Sanchez and gave us an idea of where he’ll fit in to the Arsenal team next season.

Sanchez completed his move from Barcelona last week and is due to link-up with his new team mates at the end of the month, with his debut likely to be at the Emirates Cup in early August.

While he’s predominantly played out wide for Barcelona and Udinese in recent years, Sanchez proved at the World Cup with Chile that he can play through the middle when needed.

Arsene says his versatility was one of the reasons he decided to spend in excess of £30m on the 25-year-old, and it looks like Sanchez will start life out on the wing before potentially moving to a more central role when Theo Walcott returns from injury.

The boss told Arsenal.com:

“The fact that he’s efficient, the fact that he’s good off the ball,”

“He runs at people with the ball and he’s a very versatile striker.

“He can play through the middle, he can play on both flanks and he has the qualities that I think are needed in England. He’s brave, works hard and all these qualities together made me go for him.

“At the moment he might play on the flank because Walcott is injured. As well [he can play] through the middle in some games; we can play with Giroud, we can play without Giroud in a 4-4-2 or in a 4-3-3.

“That’s why he is a major signing for us [and] that’s why we spend a lot of money on him. He has the quality to be efficient everywhere he plays.”

This is what I predicted the boss would do. Start Sanchez out wide then gradually move him into the middle when Theo’s back. It’s interesting to see Arsene talk about playing in a 4-4-2 formation. He switched to 4-4-2 a few times during the run-in last season so maybe we’ll see a lot more of it this year?

Theo’s also capable of playing through the middle as well, so once he’s fit, we’ll suddenly find ourselves with plenty of options in attack. It’s going to be an exciting prospect once Walcott, Ozil, Cazorla, Ramsey and Sanchez all start in the same team together. I can’t wait….

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