Arsenal: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang must be missing Lacazette

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored Arsenal’s only goal against United, but he should have had two assists too. And that’s why he loves Alexandre Lacazette.

Arsenal‘s display against Manchester United was… disappointing. There’s no denying that, on paper, the Gunners had the better squad, but were it not for a grievous defensive mistake from the hosts, we might not have even scored. Thank everything for Bukayo Saka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Which brings me to part of the problem here. That we yet again had no one to reliably to create chances. No one except… Bukayo Saka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

When it started to get frustrating, Aubameyang was freely dropping back and wide in order to get a hold of the ball so that he could get involved in the match. That’s all he wanted. He just wanted to play.

And a man of his quality, when he got the ball, he did stuff with it. He created chances. Two, in fact, both of which should have resulted in goals.

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One he sent to the far post where Nicolas Pepe utterly fluffed his lines and the other he whipped into the box on a low cross and Lucas Torreira completely mistimed it. Neither one was a threat to the goal, both were wasted opporutnities and Aubameyang was left scratching his head and wondering…

… when will Alexandre Lacazette be back?

Those are both situations where Lacazette would have finished. I guarantee you that. Lacazette has a lot of skills, one of which is his ability to be in the right place and not squander premium opportunities like those two were.

It sucks when Aubameyang has to drop deep and wide to get the ball because it takes our best finisher out of finishing opportunities. But when you see him create like he did against United, only for those chances to be fluffed, you have to wonder if Aubameyang might be better off just sitting around, waiting to be included. If he’s the only guy that can be counted on to score goals, what’s the point of him creating chances for others?

It’s a question I don’t necessarily want an answer to, because there is no good answer. Suffice to say we really need Lacazette. Not just for the entirety of the team and for our hopes of getting in the top four, but for Aubameyang to be back at his best and most useful again.