Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette still meticulously breaking down walls

Arsenal has seen a steady building of quality from Alexandre Lacazette, but he still has to break down some key walls to hit his maximum capacity.

Alexandre Lacazette finally, finally broke down a major wall against Manchester United when he was able to remain on the pitch for the entire 90 minutes. Somewhere in the doom and gloom of Arsenal losing such a lopsided match, I found some joy in Lacazette’s continued stay.

That was a huge wall for him to breakthrough, especially seeing as how he stayed relevant for the duration of the 90 and wasn’t a completely out-of-gas pile of jelly limbs. He was a threat, and maybe, just maybe, Arsene Wenger saw that and registered that it was an option going forward.

Also keep in mind that he played the full 90 after having been expected to miss the entire match with a groin injury. So there’s that, which is certainly a big deal.

But there are still walls to go for the Frenchman. His prolific goal-scoring record in France may seem unattainable in England, but the wall I am speaking of that he still needs to break down pertains to reaching those heights.

It comes down to opportunities and confidence. Lacazette is not your typical striker in that he provides more than just finishing. He isn’t a target man. He is a link in the attack and he is capable of creating for himself just as much as he is capable of creating for others.

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But, that being said, there is sometimes a need for great scorers to be selfish. That is a part of his game that Lacazette seemed to be learning quite well at Lyon. That’s not a bad thing. But there was a direct correlation between how many shots he was taking and how many goals he was scoring.

In Lacazette’s big, breakout year when he scored 15 goals, he was taking 2.3 shots per match. That began to increase, as did his goal tallies. The following year he scored 27 goals on 2.9 shots, then 21 on 2.8, then 28 on 2.8. He seemed to have found that little sweet spot around three shots per game.

For Arsenal, he is averaging 2.3 shots per game. That’s not bad by any means. But when you put it up next to Harry Kane (5.7) or even Alexis Sanchez (3.5), there is certainly room for one more step up. And this isn’t a big step. One more shot per game would do it. He just has such an undisputed ability to score that all I want is to see him taking more chances to accomplish that.

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Baby steps should get him there. 25 goals a year is absolutely attainable, and to think he is on pace for just under that in his first year should remind everyone of what he is capable of.

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