Arsenal: We’d be so screwed without Alexandre Lacazette

Arsenal failed to finish in the top four for the third consecutive season, but things would be far, far worse if we didn’t have Alexandre Lacazette.

Arsenal fans have known for the past five months or so who the player of the season was going to be, so seeing the club formally announce it prior to the Brighton match felt like little more than an arbitrary thing to do.

Anything bit of hesitation was officially erased when this club failed to take three points from Brighton, and thus eliminated themselves from finishing in the top four and solidifying a Champions League place for the third consecutive season.

I’ve gone on some serious rants since the match has ended, so instead, I just want to confine this rant into just how remarkably screwed we would be if we didn’t have Lacazette on the team. Because if there is anything scarier than trying to imagine that, I don’t know what it is.

Against Brighton, we looked a team without anything to play for, despite the fact that we had everything  to play for. And when the match really got gritty towards the end, we needed someone to step up, as we so often do.

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But while Mesut Ozil was disappearing, Lucas Torreira was falling over and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was skewing his lines, Alexandre Lacazette yet again proved himself to be the only man capable of doing the job.

He worked a near-miracle to give his team the lead as time ticked away and, when he got tired of getting lost in the packed box, he dropped out to become a winger of sorts – a creator – since no one else was doing that job well enough.

Every bit of hope that we felt late in this match was a product of Lacazette and no one else. No one else exhibited the drive, and the ability to do something with it, that the Frenchman did, and thus, we unsurprisingly failed. Because for as good as Lacazette is, he is still just one man.

If you needed any more reminder of how important he is, consider how screwed we would have been in this match had Lacazette not given up some semblance of hope. It’s been the same all season, as he leads a team of “creative superstars” in assists and continues to thrive as one of the only guys who you know you can count on when it’s absolutely needed.

No doubt he’ll feel hard done that he wasn’t able to turn this match around, but he did absolutely everything he possibly could.