Arsenal: Jack Wilshere should be feeling like Alexandre Lacazette

Arsenal made the highly questionable decision to sit Alexandre Lacazette, but they sat someone else too, so why shouldn’t Jack Wilshere be just as annoyed?

“Give it a chance” they said (I said). “It may work out” they said (I also said). That’s what the positive thinkers like myself were saying when Arsenal released their starting XI to face Manchester City. As pissed as I was that Alexandre Lacazette was not starting, I was determined not to knock Arsene Wenger too much until it all played out.

And then it played out and, just as the naysayers suspected, it was a stupid decision. That starting XI was a mess and it made no sense why. So many changes to follow up some pretty solid form, especially in the attack?

It didn’t make any sense. Least of all Lacazette, who was, is, and always will be our top scorer this year. That is, assuming Wenger doesn’t think himself into a corner and drop Lacazette to the U23s.

Then there was Alex Iwobi, who was massively irrelevant in a premium opportunity that no one is sure how he earned. He didn’t create a single chance and while he did defend decent enough, it wasn’t enough to outdo his lack of attacking power.

Francis Coquelin played too. These Thursday games were supposed to keep the rotations in standard order, according to Wenger. But then again, when has Wenger ever been 100% candid all the time?

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Lost in the mix of all the negative stories is the fact that Jack Wilshere didn’t start. This young man who is capable of literally anything and world class when he’s in form, was passed up for the likes of Iwobi and Coquelin, neither of whom lived up to the opportunity and the latter of which was taken off in the 55th minute – tremendously early for Wenger.

And on came Wilshere with the game out of hand and all I kept thinking was the same thing I thought when I saw Lacazette on the bench – “what else can he do?”

There’s no guarantee Wilshere would have made much of a difference, but don’t you think that, in a game that needs big play potential to match that of City’s power-play attack, that you’d trust someone like Wilshere, who has ability to match any damn player in Blue, over Iwobi and Coquelin?

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It’s bizarre. And you can’t pull the “well, he played on Thursday” card because so did Coquelin, who is coming back from an injury. Wilshere and Lacazette are in the same boat here. Immensely talented, capable of making a difference, and continuously pushed to the side for no apparent reason.

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