Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette goal drought showing why he was purchased

Arsenal signed Alexandre Lacazette to do exactly what he can’t seem to do lately – score. But that doesn’t mean that his goal drought is a drought at all.

Arsenal have lived and died by the form of strikers for some time. Robin van Persie was the everything. If he didn’t score, Arsenal didn’t score. It was dependency at it’s worst. Olivier Giroud carried on that trend, only he was less effective than van Persie. The Gunners dependency carried over and the Frenchman was left to cobble the pieces together.

He is only now recovering from being unable to live up to those expectations and the club is still bumbling along, trying to figure out how to get over the striker dependency.

Alexandre Lacazette is currently in a drought that would normally dismantle the Gunners of the past few years. He has now failed to score in eight games (seven starts) and 534 minutes. The stats aren’t that flattering, as he has managed just seven shots on goal in that time.

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But despite the fact that he is indeed in a goal drought, he is by no means in an actual drought. What do I mean? I mean that a drought indicates a lack of effectiveness, or a holding back of the team as a whole. Lacazette is not doing that. Oddly enough, he is fitting into the attacking build up better than ever before.

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Think of the goal against Crystal Palace that he passed up to give to Alexis Sanchez.

He has tripled his assist output while not scoring and bolstered his chance creation numbers by healthy total.

This is why he was purchased. He was purchased not just to be a finisher, which he is just in a bit of a dry spell with, he was purchased to do what Wenger now expects from everyone – everything.

We have seen his ability to score, that isn’t going anywhere. What was up for question in those goal scoring days though, was how long it would take for him to gel with his team mates. It was a work in progress, but the very fact that we are now seeing that progress is why this is not a drought at all. Lacazette is undoubtedly frustrated by his inability to score, but more importantly, the team isn’t suffering.

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Goals are still being scored rather consistently. It’s the defense that is struggling. Lacazette is still finding tremendous effectiveness in other ways, and that is a gift we should all be appreciating.