The big question amongst Arsenal fans this summer, apart from the usual transfer rumours of course, was whether our captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was going sign a contract extension or not.
Well now we are getting ready for the same situation this season, with Alexandre Lacazette approaching the end of his current deal, and as usual we will need to decide whether to extend or let him run his contract down.
The Frenchman is currently our top scorer, and if he ends the season the same way then we should be thinking about extending, as Arteta said this week in the Daily Mirror: “The moment he transformed a little bit his confidence, he became a different player,”
“I think it is linked to confidence, and that is linked to playing more regular minutes and scoring more goals. He finds himself in better form. And then it is about supporting our players.
“A lot of things relate to the game, things he needs to read better about his movement, sometimes about his body language. A lot of things are important to visually see yourself and then you try to correct them.
“We will talk certainly about his contract situation. At the moment what I want is that he keeps performing the way he is at the moment until the end of the season and then it will be the right time to talk about it.”
Obviously our worry is that we gave Auba his extension and he had his longest run without a goal since he joined us! Should we worry that the same thing could to Laca?
If he’s not consistent till the end of this season, better offer him to other clubs. We need an upgrade if we want to win a European trophy, unless we win the EL in this season
Time to cut loss by selling him
Joe slow willian Why? Lacca is a work horse he never stops Auba don’t work that hard OH I forgot Auba is a lot older
We definitely need an upgrade, a younger version of a ” Thierry Henry ” .
After they sign a new contract extension they fail to deliver, are they’re following the same stunt as Osul
Noooooooooo….if he’s the best we can have we are doomed.
Going on previous he will get a new 3 year 300,000 a week contract then do sod all for the rest of the contract!!
Danny Like Auba
My answer is Capital No
We need a different kind of striker – a target man in the mold of a Giroud who can offer us a different kind of offensive capacity
So for me, it’s sell Lacazette and invest in another striker
When we had Giroud we were also complaining. The problem is having just Laca, without an option of a different type of striker
Never had a complaint from me when we had Ollie.
Funny how his name is being mentioned on here of late.
With our insistence of crossing the ball to precisely no one, the perfect ‘plan B”.
Insanity i agree. When we had Ollie we barely crossed not we have no target man and cross continuously
Strange
Giroud was missing some sitters way too often.
Giroud rarely missed headers. He was extremely good in the air. The missed sitters were with his feet. When we had him him we never crossed. Now we cross a lot but no one like OG to capitalise
Only if his wages are not increased and he is sold in the summer. So very unlikely.
Offer 1 year extension at same wages I’d say.
Buy a younger striker(early 20s) that he can then play back up too for the year. Or use Martinelli.
This of course is all useless if we have MA playing Willian still…
Lacazette is a spendforce and we should not waste resources. He contributes absolutely nothing. Lacazette is useless. He does not concentrate on the ball but wrestles with opponents. He waste energy on opponents instead of obtaining possession. Even Auba should be sold or benched until he leaves like Ozil
Without Laca this season we would likely be around 17th on the log mate.
He’s definitely not as good as he used to be but to call him useless is ridiculous. Man works his socks off for the team.
If anyone is useless when they not scoring it’s Auba, he contributes ZERO if hes not putting the ball in the net.
Lacazette is our top scorer this season, and Auba is second.
If we benched them both who would score our goals!
Our top scorer is useless lol!
😂😂😂🤣🤣 Gerald and PJ-SA
@Nifty i said we should keep Laca and said without him we’d be much worse off mate
While I wouldn’t consider him useless, I think the fact that he’s our top scorer is irrelevant. He spends the most time in front of the goal. If martinelli got as many minutes as the 9, I’m guessing he’d have more. I don’t think laca is the guy to lead us back in the title conversation. I’d sell him and auba and get an all around striker instead of having the two of them who both seem to have half of what we need.
Get one with some size, hold up play, pace and finishing. Eduoard for me
NO, NO, NO!
Not that he’s a flop, but he’s not the all round attacking striker that we need. Instead of playing silly buggers by extending contracts to people past their prime and giving them silly money, we should get Saha at all costs. He’s got fire in his belly, he’s Premiership proven, and he’s still got 2-4 years to go. He deserves us, and our fantastic youngsters deserve someone like him. Do not give Laca a new contract, but reshuffle our transfer team big time! Auba, Ozil, Laca, Willian, and even Pepe were not good business. We’ve got tons of talent, but what we need now is FIRE!
How old is Zaha? How many 20 goals seasons has he had at his age
Doesn’t matter. He’s in a team not worthy of him and nobody, not even Pele could score goals on his own. How old was Willian then? When he was with Newcastle, he was a maestro, and he’s still a maestro on the field, if not on the stats sheet. Who do you think (that we could possibly get) is better for us than Saha then? I’m assuming you’ve been watching him play regularly? With all respect, I think your question was a bit short sighted.
I like him , works hard
Plus won’t get anyone better ?
He should be given another contract, he works hard, brings others into play with his style.
Both Laca and Auba are living on their past reputations I’m afraid, and personally I would try to sell both in the next transfer window. Given their lucrative contracts that will of course be easier said than done nevertheless major changes are needed to revitalise our team .Our experienced, over thirties which includes Willian, have contributed virtually nothing to our cause , in a season where they ought to have been showing leadership to our promising youngsters.My views may not be shared by all Arsenal fans, but I would rather bring in younger, hungry players than persevere with overrated, overpaid trio who are past their best.Strikers like Bamford of Leeds and Tone of Brentford have impressed me as have the Brighton duo of White and Bissouma.All these players would improve our side in my opinion,and hopefully they are already in the thoughts of our Management team.
We should have been bringing in Balogun already this season in my opinion.
Laca is contributing little and Auba nothing so we have nothing to lose giving him game time.
And then bring in a mid 20s striker that hungry as you say, with Balogun ss his under study.
The way we play a fast striker is useless with high possession and slow build up, we need a striker thats good in the air or good in tight spaces. I think thats whyvPepe is coming good, fast feet as we have 21 men in 40 yards with our slow play.
Forget Balogun.. Our clueless arteta just like he got rid of Martinez and guendozi will get rid of him.. Then we’ll regret it
Get rid of Aubameyang and Lacazette they strike no fear into anyone, I don’t know what’s happened to Auba but he’s been so shockingly poor, it’s hard to believe it’s the same player as last season and the one before! We just have no one who is clinical in front of goal, Although trying to walk the ball into the net doesn’t help does it.
Teams have figured out our attack. Just sit deep znd we are useless. We’ve replied on the speed and run of Auba which become useless with our slow slow build up.
MA needs to take responsibility for our slow tempo
And the fact Auba looks completely disinterested also.. Arteta needs to take responsibility and say he’s out of his depth and go learn his trade somewhere else, we have lost more than we’ve won this season that’s not acceptable.
A new gravatar!! Have you watched The Mandalorian?
Haha no Sue I just saw the clip on youtube and they rocked it with Luke Skywalker.. they had to give him some dignity after that disaster disney cooked up 😂
no thank you … part of a massive summer clearout along with the manager or its midtable mediocrity for the foreseeable future
RW1 couldn’t have said it better myself.. Auba laca Willian and Arteta leaving is a step in the right direction.
Lacazette is a spentforce, contributes nothing meaningful to the team.
Spends most of his time on the ground and seeks to be fowled instead of aiming for goals. Can’t string his passes, lacks speed, lacks skill. What are we paying for? Stamina!
I think he should take to wrestling and leave football entirely
Seriously????
I would sell both LACA AND Auba if possible this summer. Auba will be almost impossible, given his contract. No more Ozils, Willians Luiz’s and other older players who are just here for the money.
You don’t work ferociously hard, all the time , then you don’t play is my philosophy. Laca DOES work hard, but at his age does not warrant a new contract.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Grandad wrote in his usual wise post above. Younger, hungrier and more motivated players are vital and an end to all those self entitled gravy train merchants winding down their careers at our expense. NO! NO! NO!
Interesting to see that BALE IS IN THIS CATEGORY NOW TOO. BREAKS MY HEART. NOT!
Just like Auba, Laca is playing for a contract. Once they get their lucrative contracts the performance goes out the window. So I’d say Nooooooo!
I feel we have run our course with a number of this squad.
Sometimes you need to “freshen things things up” by way of change.
New faces, new voices, different personalities around the place.
Some surprise decisions may be taken when trying to achieve the above, but squads are very much cyclical.
We need change, we all know that.
There’s surely a VERY busy summer ahead.
No more unfulfilled promises, as we are way behind schedule in terms of where we should be.
Totally Agree the Board needs to back the Manager up with proper players. Stop making Arsenal a retirement village.
Like Willian? Id rather not back someone who makes decisions like this
Same people who didn’t think Saliba was good enough. Why should they get money to make more awful decisions? Get proper people in. Edu and Arteta are clueless.
I think we should look at some of the young strikers in the Premier league.
Lacazette Yes. We should sell him (I’ll miss him though as I do with most Gunners. He will always be a Gunner to me)
Play Auba consistently up front centre
Also sell Willain
Our front 3 should be:
Pepe, Aubameyang, Martinelli
Laca needs to be sold, as it’s clear he’s neither worth the investment it will require and he simply makes no sense in light of Arteta’s insistence on crossing the ball in from wide positions ad nauseum…if this is the plan, moving forward, we need a player like Weghorst, who not only supplies some much-needed height, he would likewise provide some space for the likes of Aubs, Saka, Pepe & Marts, in and around the box, as his mere presence requires more attention by opposing defenders…it’s asinine considering that when we had Giroud Wenger wanted to pass the ball into the net and not provide crosses, yet now that we have the diminutive Laca roaming the box we can’t seem to do anything but put in cross after useless cross…it’s like we’re watching the insane sequel of the latter-day delusional Wenger years!!!
He’s got to be sold! Why in the world would we give him another contract? This is the last year he’ll have resale value, also. And hes not near good enough to get an extension. Please get rid.
Move one of Auba or Laca and I am not quite sure which one, maybe both.
Laca will want three years and cash (which I understand and don’t blame him) and we already have enough old guys.
We probably can’t move Auba as he is very expensive and playing like crap now. Maybe we need to try anyway.
Even if we were able to move them and get cash, I have no confidence in what the club will bring in. They all seem to be a) old and past best before date (long list here); b) fragile (Partey and Tierney would be fantastic if they could stay on the field) or c) short term loans where the parent isn’t too concerned about them (Ceballos, Odegard as examples).
We choose to move off younger players, well at least some of them, and we stick with an aging core of fairly mediocre players. A lot of people comment that the youngsters aren’t good enough – well neither are the oldsters…
Management has to accept that this is bottom half club and come to terms with this so that we can rebuild.
If I hear Arteta going on about how wonderful everyone played in a loss one more time I will scream. He is delusional.
Sadly we are treading water at best or slowly sinking at worst.
We used to have Alexis Sanchez & Giroud. Now, we have Laca & Auba. Do you see the difference? I have been telling this for damn 2 years, Auba & Laca is not our solution. Even Santi Cazorla can’t help this two.
No, no, no, no, no. Next transfer window is prime time to sell. Especially if he leaves to another league. Otherwise, he’ll become unsellable and there won’t be an option to reinvest.
We don’t need another Ozi/Willian situation.
I’ve nothing against the guy, even when he was on low form, I was Lacazette in. HOWEVER, I don’t think he has more than a season in him for the Premier League levels.
I think if we didn’t have Laca, Auba would be a much better player for Arsenal
So sell Laca and put Auba upfront so he can focus on his preferred position
Ok Laca puts on the hard work but he’s not consistent enough. He will be a great fit to a mid table team. Oh wait! That’s us. He can stay then 🙂
Uh, NO!
I find it ironic that certain so called arsenal fans have turned on aubameyang considering he has carried arsenal on his back from the day he arrived and because he’s going through a drought your saying sell him if I remember correctly without his goals in the last 2 and a half seasons where would arsenal be cut him some slack football is a team game other players need to contribute with some of the goals and ease the burden on aubameyang arsenal are to heavily reliant him that’s my honest opinion.
No. Given the chance, he’s a good player and striker, but It’s time to let our youngsters flourish and rise to the bait. Auba has a lot to give, and the congestion for places cannot be bringing the best out of him. Lacazet is a great asset, but It’s not his fault that we brought him in at an inappropriate time. Get some decent money for him, wish him well, and let the remaining squad find it’s true level. THEN see what we may or may not need after half a season.