Arsenal: Good luck benching Alexandre Lacazette now

Arsenal fans were united in their cries to start Alexandre Lacazette and, now that he’s had his chance, there should be no turning back.

If the plan was to wind up Alexandre Lacazette, then mission accomplished. Arsenal fans went three straight matches with one question on their mind – ‘why isn’t he starting?’ Unai Emery’s answers were less than adequate and seemed to shred the idea that he would start any time soon.

But then he did, against Cardiff City, and it really couldn’t have gone any better. Lacazette was the clear-cut man of the match, without much competition from anyone else, and overall, he was just a fantastic presence.

Everything that came his way felt like an immediate danger to the hosts. He was constantly doing something to make them uncomfortable and ended up with a fantastic assist to his best friend Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and a thumping finish for that all-important third goal.

In short, Lacazette did everything we expected him to do, and probably even more. Confidence was a concern, but it looked as though the ‘wind him up’ plan worked to perfection. Assuming that this was, of course, the plan.

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And now that it has happened, you literally can’t sit him. You just can’t. Emery has shown the capacity to start him despite his own claims that he wouldn’t. He has shown that he is open to it and with how well he did, it is going to take a colossal collapse from Lacazette for a benching to be warranted.

That is, unless you want to risk pissing off the entire fan base just five matches into the season. because that is exactly what will happen if Lacazette is on the bench against Newcastle United. There is not a single justification to make sense of such a decision.

Not least of all because right now, I think fans are pretty unanimous in who they trust the most with scoring goals – it’s Lacazette.

Which means that changes are needed inside of the attack. There is a lot of flexibility in this arena, though, so that’s not a bad thing. In the end, it may work perfectly for Emery, who can pick and choose his best attacking options around his dynamic striking duo, which is the best weapon this team currently has. By a long shot.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: This is how it’s supposed to work.