Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang love affair continues

Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang both looked sharp in Arsenal’s preseason match against Boreham Wood on Sunday. The love affair that began to blossom last season continues.

When Arsenal signed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the January transfer window, it was a little uncertain what the role he would accommodate would be. Alexandre Lacazette was only acquired six months prior for a club-record fee. Two very similar players at the very same position. Did they really fit?

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And initially, the signs suggested a fairly unequivocal ‘no’. Arsene Wenger immediately dropped Lacazette to the bench, starting Aubameyang through the middle, and had seemingly decided on who his starting centre-forward would be. Lacazette would have to be resigned to being the reserve. But then Wenger altered the shape and the system to squeeze both into the same XI.

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Turning back the years to when Aubameyang featured as a winger at both Borussia Dortmund and Saint Etienne, Wenger shifted the Gabon international into a wide-left role, inserting Lacazette at the striker position. It worked wonderfully and the two shared a blossoming relationship during the latter stages of the season, with Aubameyang still able to push into advanced positions from out wide and Lacazette showcasing his goalscoring abilities with eight goals in his final ten matches.

With Unai Emery taking Wenger’s place in the summer, I had wondered whether he would return Aubameyang to the striking position that is his most natural and comfortable. But in his first preseason match of the summer, an 8-0 win over Boreham Wood, it seems as though he is set to continue with the wide-Aubameyang experiment that served Wenger so well last season.

Emery started with Aubameyang out on the left and Lacazette through the middle. Within 17 minutes, the former had scored a hattrick. By the end of the half, Arsenal had scored five goals in total, with Lacazette recording a goal and an assist and Aubameyang adding an assist to his trio of beautifully-taken strikes from earlier in the half.

Indeed, it was Aubameyang that laid on the pass for Lacazette’s goal, sliding the Frenchman in behind the Wood defence, who then calmly and clinically slotted the ball into the far bottom corner. Their interplay for the goal was emblematic of much of their play for the whole first half.

Sharp in their movement off one another, the two combined on a number of occasions to carve open the defence. Their passing was slick and precise, their spatial intelligence was creative and attacking, and their play could have resulted in more than the five goals that it did. Obviously, the quality of the opposition must be taken into account, but the early signs are promising.

Next: Arsenal Vs Boreham Wood: 3 players who impressed

It is a love affair that the Arsenal attack hinges on next season. Mesut Ozil is still to enter the fray after his post-World Cup break, but Emery’s era will largely depend on the goals that Lacazette and Aubameyang can provide. They proved they can play together last season. Long may it continue in the next.