Arsenal Vs West Ham United: Can Alexandre Lacazette’s goals travel?

Alexandre Lacazette has scored eight Premier League goals this season; only two have come away from home. As Arsenal travel to West Ham United on Wednesday night, he has a chance to put that right.

Arsenal have not been prosperous on their travels this season. Of the 16 Premier League games that they have played up until this point, exactly half have been away from home, as would be expected, obviously. The disparity in performance and result is extremely concerning.

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The Gunners sit third in the table if just home games are accounted for, level on points with Manchester United and just one point behind Manchester City. Of their eight home games, they have won seven, losing the other one. And that loss was to United, a game in which Arsene Wenger’s dominated throughout, only to come up against some shoot-themselves-in-the-foot defending and David de Gea impersonating Stretch Armstrong.

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Contrast that to their away standing. Ninth in the table, winning just two games out of eight, losing four and drawing two. They have amassed just eight points away from home, just over a third of their total at home in the same number of games. To put that into context, Manchester City have won all eight of their away fixtures, yielding 24 points. Arsenal are 17 points behind Pep Guardiola’s side in the table; 16 of those points have come on the road.

The difficulties have come in scoring goals. At the Emirates, Arsenal have scored 21 goals. Only City have scored more at home. Away from home, they have scored just nine — an average of just 1.125 goals per game — and five of those came in one game against a hapless Everton. The Gunners have failed to score more than one in every other away fixture, and have scored zero in three games. Their tally of nine goals is bettered by seven other teams, including all of the top six, and is matched by the likes of Burnley and Stoke City.

Now, it would be unfair to pin the blame on one player. Or manager. But there is a commonality between the team’s struggles away from home and Alexandre Lacazette’s struggles away from home.

The French striker has scored eight goals this season. Six have come at the Emirates. The two that were scored away from home came in the 5-2 thrashing of Everton and a 3-1 loss to Manchester City, where he was introduced off the bench in the second half. It’s fair to say that, while not necessarily playing poorly — he was the most threatening player on Sunday at Southampton and had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside against Stoke City early in the year –, Lacazette has not had the same impact away from the comforts of home.

So Arsenal’s upcoming trip to West Ham United provides an opportunity for both Lacazette and his teammates to dispel their travelling troubles. David Moyes has hardened his side since replacing Slaven Bilic, seeing them narrowly beaten by Manchester City before fighting their way to a victory against Chelsea at the weekend. This is not the pushover fixture that it was two weeks ago.

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If Arsenal want to keep pace with the top four, then they must find a way to win away from home. That, obviously, involves scoring goals, and the responsibility, largely, falls on Lacazette. Will his goals travel? That is the question that Wednesday night will go a long way to answering.