Arsenal: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang teasing what life with wingers is like

Arsenal had a lot of problems against Newcastle, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was not one of them. Is this what life with wingers is like?

Arsenal only had a few moments to be proud of against Newcastle United, and those moments were spread pretty far apart. Defensively, they were atrocious, and when it came to creating chances, they didn’t muster much either.

Alex Iwobi showed some solidity in creating chances and at least asking questions, and honestly, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette did a good job combining for chances as well, as they split five between the two of them.

There was just a bit lacking, however, across the board. In fact, there was only one area that they were clearly not at least somewhat questionable, and that was on the left, attacking flank.

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For the first time in their shared life together at Arsenal, Aubameyang and Lacazette started side by side, only not really. Lacazette got the nod up front and Aubameyang was left to play on the wings, which he hasn’t done much of between now and when Robert Lewandowski was still his teammate at Borussia Dortmund.

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However, for the Gunners, who have zero wingers and even less speed in wide angles, Aubameyang was a dream in this capacity for one reason only – his speed.

As mentioned, the Gunners simply don’t have any wingers, instead opting for Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to play the wide angles, but the lack of speed there leaves them narrow and often without ideas.

Aubameyang gave his team mates a constant threat. All they had to do was loft the ball out in front of him and he would win the race to it. It really was that simple, and it was an open door seemingly all match.

It led to the only goal of the match, as Shkodran Mustafi (of all people) utilized that speed to find the Gabonese attacker, who in turn found Lacazette.

That avenue was open for business all afternoon, it just became all too apparent that no matter how much space Aubameyang found, if he in turn didn’t find Lacazette, there really wasn’t anyone else of value to be picking out, because no one was going to put the finishing touches on a ball.

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Hopefully, this usefulness of having speed on the touchline was noted by Arsene Wenger, because it could be the ideal Plan B, should the Ozil/Mkhitaryan pairing hit a dead end or two.