Frank McAvennie says he understands that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has to start Arsenal matches now that Mikel Arteta uses only one striker, but he feels Alexandre Lacazette is also good enough to play regularly.
The Frenchman has lost his place in the Arsenal first team this season with Arteta now trusting Aubameyang to provide the goals and attacking leadership for his team.
Lacazette’s campaign started on an unpleasant note as a covid-19 infection made him unavailable for Arsenal’s first league games of the new campaign.
When he returned to the starting lineup, the Gunners had begun to build their team around Aubameyang.
Arteta has now stuck with the formation and tactic that has helped the Gunners bounce back from a poor start to this season.
If he continues setting his team up in the same way, it could mean almost no football for Lacazette in this last season of his Arsenal contract and former West Ham man, McAvennie thinks the Frenchman should leave unless his game time improves.
“You can’t leave a player like that out,” McAvennie told Football Insider.
“It makes no sense to me. Aubameyang is a cracking player and I get he has to start.
“But Lacazette is an excellent striker. He knows where the goal is and he can’t be happy about missing out.
“Maybe this is just because there is less rotation this year. There’s no Europe so there are less games.
“Yeah, this makes no sense to me. I would ask to leave if I was him. especially if things don’t change.”
Lacazette’s contract seems to be a case of dumb and dumber.
So far he has cost the club 50m in transfer fee and 42 millon in salary a total of 92million.
So why will he leave on a free in July or a managed “sale” (meaning free) in January?
But then Ozil cost 42mill (75m in todays market ) was paid 50m salary a total 92 mill and he too left on a free. Sanchez cost 36 mill was paid 20mill salary and still left on a free.
Man City offered 60mill for Ramsey butArsenal turned them down then let Ramsey leave on a free. Willian was paid 15 mill to leave.
Mustafi + Socritis. cost a combined total of 55m fee and 17mill in salaries yet both left on a free.
Aubameyang cost 60 mill and will be paid 50 mill in salary a total 110 mill but now he is unsellable and will also leave on a free. Torreira 27 mill will likely go for peanuts. Bellerin 2mill max. Guendouzie? Saliba? Who would know.
The club will lose north of 500 mill in lost earnings these recent 3-4 seasons.
The losses will never be recouped.
Belatedly the club has now embarked on the young players with high resale value process.
Thngs can only improve.
nothing new to see here, once again FF, minus the questionable tale about our newfound transfer policy that saw us pay over the number for at least 2 of our more youthful new recruits
This is why I question if you are a fan. A real fan can not read that and not have questions, unless it suits their ego to complain?
I’ve been posting the exact same info for years, so his recycled version was “nothing new” to me, but I’m sure you didn’t care about the nuanced nature of my retort, instead you were just looking for anything that could possibly justify an all-too-familiar Angus rant…our piss-poor asset mismanagement starting under Wenger’s watch and continues to be a problem under our present administration…as such, any discussion about a few under-the-radar potentially savvy moves, like Nuno and Tomi, must also address our larger investments, where we paid over the number, or claims, like the one’s FF made, wouldn’t properly reflect the full story
Hardly. We’d of solved it last summer (not this just gone) for to 40-50 mil was the plan but the pandemic. We won’t renew because of age/quality/pandemic even more. Nobody was willing to bid for the same reasons. Simple. That was not the only way the pandemic hit. We wanted to sell Guendouzi he’d of gone for 30+ non-pandemic. Torreira btw wanted to leave under Emery because he does not like living in the UK. Not complicated, can’t be fixed, he’d of gone that summer on a profit compared to what we paid. All of Leno, Torreira and Guendouzi were good value buys without a pandemic all would been sold for profit, As to Saliba he is considered part of future and was loaned so could play in the 5th league in Europe to develop (Sancho played in the 3rd league tearing it up last year and is struggling at United right now for context, premier leagues is moving away from La Liga never mind the rest of europe.) Fairfan you talk nonsense, real talk. Willian publicly cancelled his contract and was not paid to leave. He cost his signing on fee and wages in his only season. For context Jenkins cost not far off with his total wages/transfer if you are going to be facetious and include wages when they are normally not and add up the total.
Pandemic is separate from normal bad decisions like given Ozil the new contract.
Worth noting I pointed out the pandemic impact in the summer in regards to last summer and contracts/sales and all the negative voices ignored it, ridiculed it and pretend it was made up. Now they are complaining about the result of it happening………. couldn’t make it up.
Saddest part was I was going to write to just Arsenal to do a series of a positive articles (5, planned them in depth) based on our current position prior to the the pandemic but the pandemic hit (at the time the media were claiming we’d have no money spend, some believed that, I was going to write article pointing out at the we could sell Niles for 30+ (replace with guendouzi later), Laca for 40-50 (his valuation then, no doubt), Torriea for 30+, Sokratis 5+, Mhki 12+ (they offered that in jan, wed of got 15 without pandeimic.) so and so forth. So yeah Im a little annoyed that no-one can work that, i didn’t even include all the players mustafi, ozil not waiting to jan, kola (still here)……….. Pandemic didnt exist! Funny enough after covid hit and I was arguing with regulars that the season would finish it did. 1 is on board with Arteta, the others talk down to me the same way they did last time they were wrong. Top 4 by the end of the next 5. 5th min season. Called it. Suspect we might edge either of United/Liverpool said it before the season, United are not as good as people pretend and Liverpool are more vunerable than anyone in the league to injuries in terms of performance. Both were true then (prior to Ronaldo signing) and still true now.
fairfan, Forget the usual cynicism of TRVL and his complete inability – as I and others have long noticed – to EVER say anything complimentary or good about any other Gooner!
You are of course in BROAD terms correct.
I too think things will slowly but steadily improve, due to the change of club policy, to concentrating on youth AND to abandon buying older players with limited shelf life. But we have lost a huge figure and I WILL NOT argue with your £500 + mill.
That has set us back a great deal compared to our rivals. Few Gooners give DUE weight to this burden that we now bear , though you do , I do and SOME others do.
I only wish other fairminded fans would recognise that only a fraction of this figure stops at MA’s door.
In my view the major villains are GAZIDIS AND ALSO KROENKE FOR NOT SACKING HIM YEARS EARLIER.
To me, the name of Gazidis will go down in the history of our club as one of thee gravest mistakes ever. Second only to the sacking of David Dein.
Of course, trumping both of those was the decision to let Kroenke take control but that was more a deliberate personal financial betrayal caused by our former directors than a “mere” mistake!
Sigh!
your first statement drips with irony, considering your posting history on this site…I have no problem giving kudos to other posters of consequence, like Durand, Reggie, DK, Phil, PJ and Ken, when the issue at hand isn’t Wenger-related, just to name a few
TRVL, Its of note that I see all those you state are “of consequence” are firmly MA out fans, with the sole exception of KEN , who though he has doubts – as do I too – has resolved to support MA while he remains manager.
No one knows for certain what the future holds but I say that true supporters support the manager of the day and do not constantly, daily and sometimes even hourly, like Reggie in particular, badger for MA s removal as though MA were setting fire to the stadium!
I MERELY ASK FANS TO HAVE SOME PERSPECTIVE AND WRITE WITH SOME CONTEXT.
That is, sadly, too much for many fans to accept. Sigh!
awfully judgmental Jon…par for the course, I guess…it shouldn’t seem that unusual that I would find common ground with other like-minded, well-reasoned individuals…I can’t imagine why that would be a problem, especially for someone, like yourself, who has done likewise, on both sides of the Arteta argument “fence”, depending on which way the wind was blowing in any given month
Lacca is a better team player and should be playing
Laca is our most effective striker given his work rate and hold up play, both of which lead to more shots on goal and hence increase the chances of goals scored effectively. If MA wants to stick to Auba, play him along with Saka on the wings, put Laca as CF. Put ESR infront of Partey and ASL. That leaves out Ode, bring him on as a sub or rotate him for ASL.
I agree on Laca, but it surprises me how most people just seem to accept Auba has to be involved no matter what. How much longer did his poor form need to go on before the penny drops?
No disrespect meant to Auba – he practically carried us for a couple of years with his goals – but it’s only history that is keeping him in the team now, and it’s crazy that we seem more intent on binning the only forward (Laca) who has performed with any degree of quality and consistency in top level games over the past year. It’s like we’re handicapping ourselves and I don’t understand why.
Laca doesn’t score enough goals to justify what we paid for him, and he’s not 100% consistent, I get it, but he’s far and away our best striker at the moment
Laca deserves more, I think MA should try to increase his playing time and play around with his formation, at least now we have a “strong back 4”!