Lacazette needs to go to make room for our Young Guns

Lacazette Must Go by AI

The rumours on the scene is that Alexandre Lacazette may or may not leave, depending on if any offers come for him.

 

Well, in a COVID-19 impacted financial year, it is not very likely that we see a good offer for a player on significant wages entering the last year of his contract. And in that scenario, Lacazette stays.

The problem with that scenario and Lacazette staying is that it clogs up the team. We are not talking about a player who is an unknown quantity. We are talking about someone who has never hit 20 goals in his best season for Arsenal. He hasn’t and he won’t this season. So if he stays, it is to eat up minutes up front that could go to Gabriel Martinelli or Folarin Balogun, both of whom could realistically outscore Lacazette if they play as much as he does.

Lacazette must be sold. Just get him off already. Call up old friends and favours. Shop him to Brighton. Offer West Ham a “brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’. See if PSG are looking for a backup option. And what are those Chinese teams up to these days? Whatever the case may be, Lacazette has to leave.

 

His leaving brings clarity to our future at striker, to see any of our young lads can take the position and free the space for the arrival of a marquee signing.

If Lacazette stays, then he will eat up exhibition minutes for either of Balogun or Martinelli, especially when we have no European football to add opportunities for our Young Guns. But it’s not going to be much of the board’s fault if they don’t receive an offer for him.

 

After all, if wishes were horses, Tottenham would ride.

 

Agboola Israel

Tags Balogun lacazette Martinelli

23 Comments

  1. Martinelli needs to start more. He is the future! No need for another striker to come in. We just need to improve our midfield to supply our attack!

    We need to sell a few of our surplus players to improve our creativity with the funds we make!

    1. I still like GM at left wing – I agree he could end up being a central striker, but for now he’s probably better suited to the wide position. It also gives us a major goal threat from another position, which can’t be a bad thing

  2. I believe Arsenal are trying their best to sell Lacazette, otherwise he would’ve been offered a new contract. I think it’s easy to do it if Arsenal are willing to sell him for 10 M, but that’ll be way below his initial value

    1. GAI
      I can’t wait for Lacazette to be sold. Sometimes he can’t compete effectively aerially and he misses loads of chances as a number 9 Though, his work rate is good.
      I heard of Tammy Abraham loan rumor. I think Arsenal should seize the chance and sign him. Tammy is young and his goal ratio is better than Lacazette and he is good in the air. Lacazette and Nkethia can be sold. for all I care.

      1. There aren’t many tall CF who possess Lacazette’s abilities. The ones who have that killer combination are very expensive, so we must find the unpopular ones

        Abraham is good in the air, but I read bad comments from Chelsea fans about his ability to link-up and to keep the ball. Maybe it’ll be different if Arteta trains him, so a loan will be a good choice

  3. Amazing, straight after an article extolling the virtues of fans getting behind the team and not abusing players, eg, Xhaka, how we should all pull together, blah, blah, the same writer states strongly and in no uncertain terms that “Lacazette must be sold” after taking him to pieces in the article. SMFH🤫

    1. Getting behind the team made up of Kroenkes, Arteta, Edu, Saka, ESR, Tierney, Martinelli, Partey, WILLIAN and other Arteta’s signings was what the author meant in the other article.

      Just another “pro-management” article to justify the future sale of Laca for a knockdown price because of the management’s failure to get their act together when Laca entered his final two years of his contract last summer.

      We’ll be seeing more on these lines before the summer transfer window slams shut.

    2. Declan The simple truth is, IMO, that Agboola has an overpowering urge to write about anything Arsenal related at all. Only today JA is packed with his articles. He has a very enthusiatic way with words but at the expense of logical joined up thinking and deeper analysis with evidence given for his opinions.
      I feel that he has a way with words and that when he gets more life experience he may well become a fine and even perhaps widely known writer.

      But right now his evident youth is holding back his abilities. True thinking is always paramount, even when the phrasing is less riveting than Al’s.
      Quality above quantity every time, for me!

    1. I think you will find that quite a lot of articles on JA are opinions from readers and writers….
      Well done for noticing!

    1. My thoughts exactly – I think this is a massive blindspot that could completely ruin the season, actually.
      if we had to choose one experienced striker to keep around the youngsters, I’d rather have the one that puts the effort in and sets that example. I’m actually worried about how much the younger players could look up to Auba at this point. He was great for us, but he’s not looking the same player, and if he’s not scoring, he doesn’t set a good example

  4. I think this article is so wrong and highlights what I believe to be a massive blindspot wrt this arsenal squad.
    Laca was our best CF last season by far. Unfortunately it’s true that he’s never scored as many goals as we expected, but he generally improves the team and helps us make chances when he plays, and it’s not like he doesn’t score at all, just his finishing hasn’t been consistent enough.
    I don’t believe he would block the progress of GM or Balogun because Arteta has shown in the past he’s willing to give opportunities over him if he feels someone deserves it (see Nketiah the season before last), and there’s no guarantee either will be ready to take over the CF spot next season anyway – we still need a reliable senior CF for now.
    Auba is the elephant in the room. We should be looking to move him on instead of Laca but we can’t because of his ridiculous contract. If anything he will block the progress of the younger players and prevent us from playing our best 11 (which currently includes Laca) as it’s in our interest to try to play him back into form, in order to justify the huge contract.
    If we sell Laca, cet par Auba will be the nailed on starting CF, and given his form last season that’s a massive risk, so I could only agree with selling Laca if we replaced him with another senior CF – actually wouldn’t mind Abraham because he’s very hungry and, from what I’ve seen (although many seem to disagree) a pretty well-rounded CF.

  5. Still a huge fan of Laca – 100% tryer. Even if we just run down his contract he’s one guy I’d love on the bench if not playing. That doesn’t mean he’s tying up a starting spot, but it does mean when you need that Laca grit and knowhow. Unique player.

  6. I totally disagree with you. And rather agree with Davi.

    Laca has been immense for the team, works hard and is a good handler of the ball.

    And let’s look at it the other way round, isn’t Auba also reducing Laca chances.

    Laca had more goals despite fewer shots, far better goals per minute, better shot accuracy, won more penalties for us, has a better pass accuracy, more blocks, more interception, more attempted and successful tackles, fewer offsides all these in over 400 minutes less than Auba

    Whereas, there’s nothing Auba does that Martinelli cant do

    So what’s the agenda here.

    1. I don’t understand the craziness in auba as he is not an all round player as laca and besides the over defensive style of play of arteta is what we should be questioning not these two strikers

  7. the only logical course of action is to move on from Laca this window…this in no way suggests that he brings nothing to the proverbial table, it’s just that his contributions, combined with his age, don’t warrant a re-upping, and we simply much make a concerted effort to change our piss-poor asset mismanagement narrative that has plagued this club for far too long…the fact remains, this should have occurred last off-season, when we had considerably more leverage and other teams had expressed interest…unfortunately, his stay was largely predicated on Arteta’s misplaced and short-sighted “retool” initiative, which failed miserably

  8. hes very hard to sell. I think he’s free end of next season, he’s 30+ on high wages, and has been above average on his best days. I think he’s going to stay. If that stops us from getting Abraham then it’s a plus. Shame we can’t trust the club to avoid obviously bad transfers. Every summer we are sniffing at who Chelsea is trying to get rid of. It’s insane.

  9. Check the numbers of Lacca’s conversion rates, and goals per minutes, you will be surprised.
    Of course, his link up and team playing ability is what we call agree on.
    His only important weakness is aerial ability, we should score more from crosses, but our wingers should contribute to this too, running into the box.

    The real question mark is Auba, he declined significantly last season for number of reasons. In preseason, he does not look ready yet, I hope he gets back his scoring boots.

    Anyways offliading any of them will be difficult due to wage and age.

  10. Agboola raises the issue of Lacazette being moved on to provide opportunities for Arsenal young forwards, yet Martinelli and Pepe did not get the game time last season they deserved. Arsenal are supposedly in talks with Tammy Abraham, so what impact would that have on Pepe, Martinelli and Balogun. Nicola Moller a tall CF has been sent on loan.
    Maybe Arsenal’s forward line, including Lacazette would be more productive if the Club invested in a DM to win the ball back and with Thomas Partey progress the ball forward and a CAM to assist Saka and ESR in scoring goals from midfield, as well as providing opportunities for that forward line.

    1. Pepe, Martinelli and Nelson were benched to give game time to the YOUNGEST GUN in the squad – Willian.

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