The Gunner’s biggest ever signing, Alexandre Lacazette, was hailed as a goalscoring genius when he arrived from Lyon this summer, for a Arsenal record transfer fee of 52m GBP, after scoring 28 goals in just 30 League games in Ligue 1. He certainly lived up to that billing by scoring in each of his first three Premier League matches and amassed 8 goals very quickly.
But Wenger never let the French international play a full 90 minutes and he was actually started from the bench against Man United and scored a consolation goal for us while we lost 3-1 at the Emirates, but since then he has gone 8 games without another goal. Despite his quick start Arsene Wenger doesn’t think he has adapted to English game yet and needs more time to get used to the rigorous tempo of the Premier League.
“It’s a difficult period, the first year, because the family comes over and it’s a bit less football-orientated,” Wenger said. “But you get used to it and he has played many games until now.
“I would say that the physical pressure on the strikers here in England has become absolutely massive. The physical demands and the intensity in the challenges is much bigger than in France.
“[I like] his intelligence, his team attitude and the quality and the speed of understanding with the other players. What he has worked on is to cope with the intensity of the challenges.
“In France you go down and it’s a free-kick. In England you go down and it’s no free-kick. That is much more difficult for the striker to get used to that.
“I think he resists better. This guy is used to scoring 30 goals per year so at the moment even if he says no, I am sure he is frustrated.”
Lacazette always looks dangerous when he gets the ball, but with the strength and pace of EPL defenders he doesn’t get much time on the ball as our opponents have learned his style of play, but Wenger thinks that he still does enough for the team even though he can’t seem to score any more.“Everybody goes through that spell. ” Le Prof said. “Alexandre Lacazette is a real team player and if he continues to give to the team what he’s giving at the moment, the team will give it back to him. At some stage, he will score very quickly. But because he’s not used to that, at the moment it’s a bit difficult for him to bear that, but I’m not worried about it, honestly.”
Wenger may not be worried about it, but Arsenal fans could have cause for concern as Lacazette was supposed to be the Gunners top striker that we had all been waiting for, to help us compete with the big boys in the race for the title. But right now he is looking out of his depth at the moment which reminds me of our acquisition of Olivier Giroud back in 2012. Olli was also the top scorer in Ligue 1 and came to us with a big reputation but only managed 11 League goals in his first season, and has never netted more than 16 in any of his five seasons in the EPL.
Are Arsenal fans beginning to think that we have got yet another Olivier Giroud in the team?
Darren N