Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette imprints key first impression

Alexandre Lacazette scored his first goal at the Emirates on Sunday with a smart side-footed, far-post finish. He has imprinted a key first impression on the Arsenal faithful.

In life, as much as football, first impressions are extremely important. A player or person can make a significant imprint on the premonitions and opinions that those have of them. It is perhaps a detrimental aspect of society, that we can be so fickle, so influenced, so moulded so quickly. However, it is nonetheless the case. It in this context that Arsenal’s record signing makes his first start at the Emirates.

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Having been signed for £52 million, there is a certain amount of expectation and anticipation heaped on the shoulders of Alexandre Lacazette.

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The Frenchman, who has only experienced club football in his country of birth — he has, in fact, only ever played for one club, rising through the youth system at Lyon –, comes to North London with a slighted reputation thanks to the level of competition that he has faced so far in his career, the number of penalties that have inflated his goalscoring record, and the lack of cultured, informed, knowledgeable football fans who have made considered and careful assessments, instead, swamped by the snap, often misguided evaluations that pervade in the ‘hot-take’ modern football world.

It is these too-quick judgements that make first impressions so important. A player of Lacazette’s price does not get time to prove his quality, whether he requires it or not. Thankfully, then, for those of us that are supporters and believers in his ability and predict success for him at Arsenal, Lacazette made a positive first impression on Sunday.

While Arsenal would proceed to lose the second of the weekend’s Emirates Cup ties 2-1 to Spanish club Sevilla, and Lacazette himself was inconsistent throughout, clearly lacking the dynamic, sharp, shared understanding and cohesiveness that is only developed with practice and repetition, there was one moment where the prolific striker displayed exactly why Arsene Wenger was so happy to heavily invest in his services.

After Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain burst past his opposite number, Lacazette, who was already looking to poach in and around the penalty area, was on the move. He first tried to sneak in behind the Sevilla defence, looking for a low, driven, square pass into the corridor between goalkeeper and defence. But then, as he realised that Chamberlain was forced into pulling the ball back behind the quickly back-tracking defence, he stepped off, taking advantage of Danny Welbeck’s inability to connect, turning the far-post strike home for his first Emirates goal.

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It was not an especially brilliant piece of play. It was not an individual bit of skill. It was not a remarkable finish or extremely difficult dribble and shot. It was simply sharp movement and confident dispatching of the resultant chance. That is what Arsenal signed and Lacazette has imprinted the key first impression on those fans in the Emirates on Sunday.