Wenger: Sanchez, Giroud & Walcott can score 20 each this season

Arsenal do not have a striker problem, according to Arsene Wenger, who believes Alexis Sanchez, Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott can score around 20 goals this season.

The Premier League side were expected to sign a new forward ahead of the close of the summer transfer window, with Edinson Cavani and Karim Benzema linked with a move to the Emirates.

No such signing materialised, and Wenger insists it is because he is willing to put faith in the attackers already at his disposal.

“I think Giroud, Walcott and Sanchez can get around 20 goals without any problem," he told reporters. 

"Sometimes you have to trust your players and play them. Then they get there. People want always the absolute certainty that they will be absolutely successful. It is not like that.

"It is not a science that everybody masters and can absolutely predict how many goals everybody will get.

“I would rather have Aaron Ramsey get 15, Mesut Ozil 15, Santi Cazorla 10. Otherwise, if you have only one player who scores, when he is injured you don’t know who will score.”

Wenger was criticised for not bringing in another attacker this summer, but he insists the continent is not producing centre-forwards any more.

"The strikers are South American today. Europe doesn’t produce strikers any more.

"You look at countries like Germany, who played in Scotland or against Poland with Mario Gotze up front – he’s a creative midfielder. I don’t think it’s because they do not want to play with a typical striker but they haven’t got one who’s really convincing at the top level.

"Who in Europe do you see?"

The Frenchman believes the issue lies with the youth academies, insisting players must be moulded into forwards at an earlier age.

"What I am convinced of is that in the academies we have to specialise the players. There is an age from five to 12 where you have the acquisition of the technical skills. At 12-14 you start to develop the speed and physical qualities, but from 14 onwards, when you start to position the players for their careers, maybe you have to work with specificity of a position again.

"Maybe we have to rethink completely the education and specialise earlier. What we produce now are good technical players because there are nice pitches out there – before you played in the park where you had to kick the ball up front and you had to fight.

"A boy of 12 who played against a boy of 16 had to be shrewd and push to get the ball. All those kind of things have gone.”