Him as a “striker” may not work necessarily if your vision of striker if he takes Giroud’s place and does everything Giroud does but better (I guess we can let him off for being worse in the air), but him as the most advanced attacker in a fluid attacking unit does work, and why wouldn’t it? He’s great and the players around him are great.
I remember making this long post on the subject just before we signed him and this match was just completely what I was dreaming of.
Iwobi, Ozil, Sanchez, Cazorla are 4 of a “front 4 or 5 that are great players before they are great forwards, wingers, midfielders” and Walcott’s role is also vital (and I’m hoping maybe Perez could fulfil the Walcott role and the Sanchez role if needed).
The problem was never Sanchez as the forward (although naturally a new role in a new system - he obviously needs to adjust a bit), IMO the problem has always been the rest of the team not playing a way that could use Sanchez as a forward. In the first few games we were getting wingers running to the corner flag and then crossing it high over Sanchez’s head - well of course that’s going to fail. This just completely felt like how it was meant to be though.