Arsenal: The hump that Alexandre Lacazette needed to overcome

Arsenal looked to be headed towards a goalless draw when Alexandre Lacazette found the back of the net, thus overcoming the hump he’s been stuck on all year. Or so we hope.

Following the end of Alexandre Lacazette‘s goal drought against Newcastle, Arsenal went ballistic. Lacazette looked happier than we’d ever seen him and we the fans were ready to move on from the doldrum Lacazette we’d en experiencing for months and get back to the world-beater Lacazette.

That stalled against Olympiakos, when Lacazette missed an easy, early chance. It looked like the old Lacazette all over again and more than anything else, we needed Lacazette to score.

As the game wound down towards a goalless draw, he delivered that goal. Though the hard work was put in by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Bukayo Saka, Lacazette was there to tap in and thus eliminate the risk of starting another goal drought so soon after ending the last.

It wasn’t much of a looker, that finish, but the goal did what it needed to do—it got Lacazette over the hump. He had only scored goals in back-to-back matches one other time this year, back on December 5th and 12th.

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More than that though, it showed that Lacazette can turn a bad game around. He has had so much trouble converting once the confidence goes south. Sometimes you just need some good attacking play from your teammates to kickstart that confidence, and hopefully, Lacazette felt the confidence surge ending a bad match with a goal.

While that goal was perhaps his only good moment of the match, it was a pretty big moment.

It’s what I call the Aubameyang, and it’s what separates okay strikers from great strikers. Aubameyang can disappear for the entire match but score a goal and make you forget all about it. Lacazette did an Aubameyang, and he has never been the kind of striker to have that sort of effect on a match.

But with confidence at an all-time low, seeing him turn in even a simple tap-in like that is a ton of fuel on the fire of hope that he has finally gotten over the hump of a paralyzing lack of confidence. As is always the case though, we will just have to wait and see to know for sure.

In the meantime, a win is a win, and we have Lacazette to thank for the win in the end. That feels good for fans, and it feels good for him too.