Michael Thomas has claimed that Alexandre Lacazette should return to the starting line-up for Arsenal’s tough clash with Aston Villa.
The Gunners were held by Crystal Palace on Monday, with the Frenchman sparing our blushes with a last-minute equaliser in the 95th minute, and you could argue that our performance barely deserved a point.
If we play to that sort of level again on Friday when we take on Aston Villa, you wouldn’t be expecting us to win either, and the manager will surely have to look to ring the changes.
Former Arsenal midfielder Thomas admits that our side didn’t dominate until the 90 minutes was almost up on Monday, and insists that Laca should be brought back into the fold on Friday.
“The game was made hard work of and Arsenal asserted no dominance in the game until the final minutes when they put Palace under some pressure,” Thomas told CaughtOffside exclusively. “Aubameyang worked really hard and was alive throughout the game. Lacazette also looked extremely hungry when he came on and made things happen by demanding the ball be played forward faster into feet.
“The rest of the team looked out of sorts and like they were lacking confidence to take the game to Palace which is really disappointing in a home game and London derby.
“There were a lot of below-par performances but Lacazette should come into the team for the game against Aston Villa on Friday, which will be a very tough test, especially if they play anything like what they did. I’d possibly like to see more of Martinelli also, as he looked quite lively and brought good energy to the team.”
There is little argument to be made here, the team was largely disappointing, and Laca did bring something which our team had lacked for much of the 90 minutes, and it would be strange not to see him make his first Premier League start of the season.
Patrick