After a stodgy away performance, Arsenal overcame Sporting 0-1.
This game represented Arsenal’s first ever win in Portugal, and their 11th straight victory on the trot. It put the Gunners on the verge of qualification to the Europa League’s round of 32. The game-winning goal came from Danny Welbeck, although the big star on show was Aubameyang – who had a fairly poor night overall.
It’s easy to look at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s goal numbers (18 goals in his 24 games for Arsenal so far), those gaudy stats that say he’s the “fastest player to X goals” and is banging them in at a historic rate for a player so new to the Premier League, and conclude that this is the guy. This is the main man.
It helps that he’s tall, speaks French and runs at something approaching the speed of sound whilst wearing Arsenal’s no. 14 shirt. Comparisons with Thierry Henry are inevitable, and sure, one can see the similarities, but they flatter the Gabon international. And not because of quality, that’s not actually the key difference.
If you distil Henry’s Arsenal career down to its core, using one word to sum it all up, that word would be talismanic. Whatever else Henry was, he was the main man. He was the reference in attack. Arsenal knew they could give him the ball and he would lead them forward, allowing the whole attack to pivot around him.
In many ways, this explains why Arsene Wenger persisted with Olivier Giroud for as long as he did. It wasn’t that Giroud was the best striker (obviously he was lightyears away from Henry as a player) but he offered that same function at the head of the team.
The ball could be played into him, and he would feed it to his team-mates. He would make others better. Arsenal couldn’t afford to sign a superstar like Henry who could both be excellent and a talisman, so Wenger decided to prioritise the talisman part.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, for all his individual talent, is way more excellent than talismanic. We saw so against Sporting Portugal, where he roared forwards at times, showing his pace and skill (and, being honest, he should have buried a couple of chances). But the Arsenal attack could not pivot around him. He could not lift his side to mount sustained attacks and pin Sporting back into their own area.
To put it bluntly, there’s a reason Aubameyang is starting as a striker in the Europa League and coming off the bench as a left-winger in the Premier League. Because as it happens, Arsenal do have a striker capable of being their talisman. They do have a presence in attack who knows how to hold the ball, how to associate with others and improve Arsenal’s play.
That man is Alexandre Lacazette.
The former Lyon man is bizarrely overlooked when it comes to people lauding Arsenal attackers with praise, yet he is far and away the most important presence in the Gunners attack. Lacazette was brought in with the reputation of being a pure goalscorer, which is halfway true; he is an excellent finisher. A deadly poacher capable of all manner of strikes.
But he’s also an incredible playmaker; much like Giroud was for Arsenal. Unai Emery has recognised this, which is why he has placed Lacazette front and centre of his main XI whilst Aubameyang has been off to the side or playing in the Europa League.
The ability of a striker to participate in overall play is crucial to “Emery-ball” as much as the staggering pace of Aubameyang is because it unlocks the fantastic forward movement from attacking midfielders (and, indeed, wide forwards like Aubameyang). If your striker can’t do this, then your team is limited in its creative dynamism. The fact that Lacazette is an great goalscorer too makes him even more valuable.
There’s no doubting that Aubameyang is a key player for Arsenal; the ability to score goals en masse can never be ignored – but he’s not the key player for Arsenal. The main man. The performance against Sporting showed that all too clearly. Instead, it’s Alexandre Lacazette that is Arsenal’s most important forward.
The post Hyper-Giroud: why Lacazette is more important to Arsenal than Aubameyang appeared first on Squawka News.
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