Arsenal: Will Alexandre Lacazette be happy with less?

If Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is used as a centre-forward, Alexandre Lacazette could well drop to the bench, akin to Olivier Giroud last season. Will he be happy with less?

Throughout his managerial career, Unai Emery has almost exclusively played with just one striker. As most modern-day managers do these days, he looks to pack the central midfield with three or four players to wrestle control of the match and dictate the play through controlled and creative possession.

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It is likely that he will implement a similar approach at Arsenal. The 4-3-3 that he used at Paris Saint-Germain and Sevilla sees one anchoring midfielder, two double-pivots, who provide energy at the heart of the team to bomb from box-to-box, and then two speedy wingers who push high up the pitch looking to support a lone centre-forward.

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It remains to be seen whether he will use the same ploy in north London, but if he does, there is a clear dilemma on the horizon: who to play up-front? The whole question boils down to whether Emery wants to play Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang out wide to accommodate Alexandre Lacazette through the middle, or whether he wants to utilise Aubameyang in his best and most comfortable position as the striker, dropping Lacazette to the bench.

There have been rumblings that Aubmeyang is one of the four or five key players that Emery wants to build the team around. But those suggestions have hinted that it is Aubameyang the centre-forward, not Aubameyang the winger, that Emery has in mind. If that is the case, it will force Lacazette into a reserve striking role, very much akin to Olivier Giroud last season after Lacazette himself arrived as the club-record centre-forward in the summer. Is it a role that he can be happy in?

For 18 months, Giroud diligently dedicated himself to the role of sub striker. First, it was Alexis Sanchez taking his position, with the Chilean’s added pace and movement a key element to the greater fluidity with which Arsene Wenger was instilling in his attack. Then it was Danny Welbeck in the closing weeks of the 2016/17 season, for similar reasons. And last year, it was Lacazette.

But in that time, Giroud excelled as the late-game plan B that Wenger would throw on in an attempt to nick a goal and rescue points. Giroud scored several goals in the dying stages of games to nick games in Arsenal’s favour. The first game of last season against Leicester City in a 4-3 win; a 1-1 draw against Manchester United and a 4-1 win against Sunderland in which he scored two the year prior. Giroud made himself useful.

I am not so sure that Lacazette will have the same diligence and humility that Giroud had to sit on the bench and wait patiently for his chance to change games in the second half. He has been an out-and-out striker, the key goalscorer on his team, for the whole of his career. Sharing starts, nevermind relinquishing them all together, is not something that he is used to. And I’m not sure he would be happy doing it.

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But that role is important. Giroud proved its value in the 18 months that he played. Emery will need other strikers to score goals late in games from off the bench. But will Lacazette be happy with less? Emery may need him to be.