Tony Cascarino has questioned Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta’s decision to overlook Alexandre Lacazette, who he claims is their most clinical option up front.
The Frenchman was left as an unused substitute as the Gunners won their first Premier League match of the season when beating Norwich on Saturday, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang favoured to play as the sole striker ahead of Bukayo Saka, Nicolas Pepe and Martin Odegaard.
Despite failing to break the deadlock after an hour of action, the front four remained unchanged throughout the entire 90 minutes, while Emile Smith Rowe and Thomas Partey were brought on to freshen up the midfield as we went in search of the elusive goal, with the pair on the pitch around five minutes before our breakthrough came.
Cascarino was surprised that it was Lacazette who was overlooked however, by claiming that he is the most clinical of them all.
‘He [Arteta] made a lot of changes [vs Norwich], the big one was the goalkeeper, he brought in Ramsdale for Leno which is a brave call. Lacazette still can’t get in the starting line-up and I find that quite strange,’ Cascarino told TalkSPORT.
‘Out of all the Arsenal strikers, I know they’ve got Aubameyang, but I think he’s more clinical, and I think he can get 10-15 goals quite comfortably. It was a big 3 points after all the stuff surrounding it.
‘Arteta spoke about the difficulty of the last 10-15 days, used it as a positive and thought it was beneficial to them of getting over the line.
’It was always going to be difficult if they didn’t score early, it can be a difficult place to play, grumbling on the terraces where fans are getting upset. You can tell their situation is pretty dire.’
Could Lacazette be fazed out of the team with his contract expiring next summer? Should he be playing a key role this term?
Patrick