Arsenal: Never leave Alexandre Lacazette untapped

Arsenal’s best player touched the ball all of eight times in the loss against Liverpool. That isn’t okay, and it can’t happen again.

Arsenal‘s grit against Liverpool wasn’t enough, but it’s not like it was lacking either. They put up a good fight and it might have been a much different match had they been able to take either of those massive chances in the first half. Of course… Alexandre Lacazette didn’t start either, and let’s just say that maybe that was a factor as well.

I’m not going to criticize Unai Emery’s tactics. He has so many moving parts and he’s trying to find what works best. And again, it’s not like we played that bad. The tactics weren’t awful. And he started Nicolas Pepe and Dani Ceballos, he played a lot of his best players. He did his part.

Save for Alexandre Lacazette.

As our best player, there really isn’t a good reason not to play the Frenchman in every single match. Every. Single. Match. And by play, I don’t mean for ten minutes at the end.

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Lacazette only touched the ball eight times against Liverpool. How is your best player only going to get eight touches? If you want to save him for something, then be prepared to let him have an impact, not to let him walk around in a dead effort.

This is my only criticism of Emery. His reluctance to start Lacazette and Aubameyang together at the start of last year was understandable. He didn’t want to commit to two strikers and deprive his team of the extra resources deeper in the formation, but after seeing what these two do together, and after Lacazette took home player of the season, it should be no question whether or not Lacazette should be starting.

If that means moving Aubameyang wide left, fine. That’s what I thought we were going to do anyway, Aubameyang wide left, Lacazette in the center and Pepe on the right. But however you have to make sense of it, never, and I mean never, let Lacazette be an untapped resource. It is such a waste.

I just hope we don’t have to go through that same learning curve as we did last year while Emery had to figure this out. A front three of Auba-Laca-Pepe is the way to go, Auba said it too and it’s eerily reminiscent of last year when Auba kept saying that he wanted to start alongside Lacazette no matter what it took.