Arsenal: Olivier Giroud, Alexandre Lacazette in this together

Arsenal has been deploying Alexandre Lacazette and Olivier Giroud consistently as a pairing, so the sooner they attack together, the better.

You would have thought that Arsenal signed Alexandre Lacazette to make him the starting striker they’ve been starving for for the past half decade. But no… that’s just what you’d expect them to do. Rather than handing him the reigns up front, Arsene Wenger has allowed himself to be clever this preseason.

Lacazette has been playing in a deeper role next to Mesut Ozil, while at times slipping up next to Olivier Giroud. So rather than be a straight up striker, as his No. 9 shirt hints he would be, he is instead being used as a sort of false 9.

As you are well aware, that has not been too highly viewed by supporters, who think that Wenger is just doing his usual bit of playing guys out of position.

But that really isn’t the case here. Wenger has been tossing Giroud up front and letting Lacazette roam pretty freely between Ozil and the big front man. Which, as I have stated an infinite number of times, is like what the French National team do with Giroud and Antoine Griezmann.

And that has worked rather well, wouldn’t you say?

What the formation says on paper is not what the players do on the pitch. Watch Lacazette and the ground that he occupies, because he isn’t sticking to that creative midfield role, nor should he. That’s not where his primary strengths lie.

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It’s pretty clear, given their consistent pairing, that Wenger wants Lacazette and Giroud in this together, and I’m a huge fan of this idea. But in order for that to work, they need to start linking up better together.

There has been all of this talk about Giroud supposedly snubbing Lacazette’s high-five, or Giroud’s less than enthusiastic interview where he spoke of Lacazette as a ‘good player.’

That is likely all hogwash, but it’s not like they have been hitting on all cylinders in their shared time on the pitch. Which is why they need to continue to be deployed as a tandem, because the firepower of a potential Giroud/Lacazette link up is enough to make me wave buh-bye to Alexis and let the French power station take control.

With every minute these two share on the pitch, look for them to try and connect a bit more. And that doesn’t necessarily start with Giroud, it starts with feeding the ball to Giroud, who, as we saw at the 2016 Euros, can hold up play and use his smarts to determine the best way forward.

Next: 3 Reasons Missing Out On Thomas Lemar Not So Bad

Which will, hopefully, be in the form of Alexandre Lacazette charging through the box.

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