Arsenal: Pampering Alexandre Lacazette won’t facilitate growth

Arsene Wenger has indicated that Alexandre Lacazette can’t last 90 minutes for Arsenal yet, but haven’t we overcome this whole ‘protecting’ him thing yet?

Arsenal’s worse loss of the season, and of recent memory, came against Liverpool, when Arsene Wenger had the horrible idea to sit Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac because he felt they needed more time to acclimate to matches of that magnitude.

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Against Chelsea, the match was of the same magnitude, yet he had clearly learned his lesson and played his new signings.

However, in Lacazette’s case, he only lasted 65 minutes and was then subbed off for Alexis Sanchez. The French striker looked rather disappointed at being taken off, mainly because of the missed chances he had against the Blues.

But Arsene Wenger has, naturally, defended his choice to sub off a striker and replace him with an attacking midfielder, leaving his team striker-less in a must win situation.

Here is what he had to say, via the Evening Standard:

"I felt Lacazette had a very good first half, he worked hard for the team and was very disciplined. It takes him some time to maintain that intensity for 90 minutes. Don’t forget I have [Theo] Walcott, [Olivier] Giroud and [Alexis] Sanchez on the bench. After 65 minutes in a game of that intensity it’s normal that you bring fresh legs on. Does he understand that? I never ask any striker to understand that he has to make room for someone else. You never can do that."

I’m going to have to disagree with Wenger on this one. Lacazette is a professional striker in the prime of his playing career. He has spent four years being a prominent force in Ligue 1 and you don’t get there if you aren’t fit to play 90 minutes.

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This feels like another case of Wenger feeling like he has to protect Lacazette from disappointment, because the club certainly didn’t exactly improve when he was taken off. If anything, they got worse, as Alexis is not a striker and we were left without a tip to the spear.

I agree that he has other weapons to turn to, but if that is the case, then you need to add them in addition to the goal scorers you already have out there. Subbing out Alex Iwobi or Danny Welbeck would have made much more sense, as it would have upped the teams ability to finish.

And I don’t need to tell you how big it would have been to snatch a late winner against the Blues. That becomes harder when you don’t have many reliable finishers on the pitch.

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Ideally, this mindset won’t last long. Clearly he is okay with Sead Kolasinac lasting the full 90, so maybe it will just take Lacazette proving that he can play with the same intensity in the 70th minute as he has in the 10th.