Alexandre Lacazette was given a rest today at Man United to keep him fresh for Thursday’s big game, but he has been in splintering form since he came back from injury and has scored in nearly every game. Jack Wilshere thinks that the French striker will be Arsenal’s key man in the return leg against Atletico Madrid. “Alex has been great since he came back,” Wilshere said.
“We missed him a bit when he was injured. He has that natural goalscoring instinct. He can be out of the game for 60 or 70 minutes and then he comes alive. I am happy for him. We are going to need him now in the second leg. Hopefully he can continue his form.”
Our Jack was disappointed that Madrid got a late equaliser from a breakaway, but he feels that we were far the better team. “Definitely not the result we wanted,” he continued. “But the performance was good and we have got to take confidence from that and take that into the away fixture.
“It is half time. We cannot be too disappointed. We created a lot of chances. If we create chances and put them away then we have got a chance.
“We know what we have got to do and we have to take that as a positive. We have to go there and score. And we have to defend like we did for most of the game last night.
“We know we are going to have a lot of possession. They sit in and counter attack and we have to be clinical when we get opportunities.
“We are confident we can do that and take to game to them when we are there.”
We really have little choice but to go for a goal, and if Atletico drop back and defend again it could play into our hands. But Jack is right, if Lacazette continues in this rich vein of form we still have every chance of going through to the Final.
Sam P