Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette foundation starting to crack

Arsenal brought Alexandre Lacazette into a pretty sexy opportunity and he has been solid in parts, but his foundation is starting to crack.

Alexandre Lacazette was a goal fiend in Ligue 1 and that is what Arsenal were buying into, this potential reliability on a striker to be a consistent threat to the opposing goal. Don’t let that take away from the side dishes – the link-up, the creation, the passing, the presence. But the entree was the goal scoring, no doubt.

To try to convince yourself that Lacazette is doing just fine despite not scoring is a bit irresponsible and, dare I say, delusional. I have done it myself. I have tried to say “well, he is doing all these other things, so it’s okay.” And there is still a degree of that in my mind. If he isn’t going, at least he is doing other things.

Against Swansea though, for the first time, I snapped out of my delusion and realized that it wasn’t okay. He isn’t here to create chances, he is here to finish those chances. Because it not him, who?

The thing that really gets me is that, on the surface, this was a system that immensely benefited Lacazette. He had over-the-top pass masters in the deeper midfield to pick out his runs, which he has been timing to perfection more times than not this year. He had Mesut Ozil. Now he has Henrikh Mkhitaryan, whose results are still to come.

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Yet this foundation that Lacazette had to build off is not yielding results. I’m sorry, but even in a first year, nine goals in nearly 1800 minutes is not a good enough return.

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You can call it bad service all you want, but against Swansea, and in a lot of previous games, his runs have been less sharp, his lack of confidence dragging him down and his touch has been, for lack of a better word, desperate.

He didn’t attempt a single shot against the Swans.

Not all of this is his fault, though. I think we saw a major, major indication of what can happen when Olivier Giroud came on the pitch. With the two of them out there, Lacazette was able to sit in deeper positions, on the edge of the 18 yard box, and wait.

There wasn’t enough time and there was far too much desperation to get a good read on it, but he had space and, I’d wager, this is where he is more comfortable. There, he can be out of the line of fire, per say.

Lacazette has not been enough. Plain and simple. Why Arsene Wenger has never played with having him and Giroud team up as a tandem striking unit is beyond me. Maybe he wanted to give Lacazette the chance to be a solo artist like he was at Lyon. But it hasn’t worked.

Next: 5 Things Learned Against Swansea City

It’s dicey to judge a players future prospects based on one year, but usually, after six months, you start to get a read of what changes they are willing to make and how they may play out. Lacazette, after six months, looks pretty defeated. And the best way to save him is to give him assistance up front and let him drop back into more space. Which, actually, might be happening. So that’s good.

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