Alexandre Lacazette: 2019/20 Performances

[drippin]

Auba Laca Pepe is stronger than Saka Auba Pepe.

Against easier opponents for sure. You could take the other out when leading. Against top opponents you usually put your best eleven when possible.

Against better teams and/or away games it could be said that Auba up front is the best option, with Lacazette coming in later. Having better counter attacking threat.

Good to rotate whenever needed, just waiting for us to have both healthy again.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

Auba Laca Pepe is stronger than Saka Auba Pepe.

Auba Henry statue 0.5m/s wind > Auba Laca Pepe

 

[Hleb's Sirush]

It is factually based tho, he scored only 1 away goal vs non-relegated sides last season. That's as factual as it gets. Let's not forget he's a striker. If Giroud had a similar return as that he'd be absolutely slaughtered and rightfully so.

If Giroud only started 12 away games all season, with City being his only start away against the other top 6 sides, then no, I don't think any reasonable person would slaughter him for that.

Maybe the reason the bulk of Laca's goals have been against the lower sides is because that is where the bulk of his starts happen.

25% of his away starts have come against the 3 relegated teams, so it shouldn't really be strange that he then got the bulk of his goals there.

 

[DasBootist]

Auba Henry statue 0.5m/s wind > Auba Laca Pepe

More wind brah

 

[Trilly]

Auba's literally been carrying us in terms of our attack so far in the league this season. I honestly think people are going over the top about his all round play. He's a superb outlet, he links up with players well, he's creating chances for himself and he's showing leadership. Sure he isn't great if you're looking for someone to act as a guy who'll hold the ball up and bring others into player, and he's not the most technically gifted but he's by far the best striker we've had since Van Persie and it's not even close.

We're so much better with Auba centrally, we've no missed Laca at all we've scored plenty of goals so it hasn't been an issue at all. Look at the goals Auba is scoring, now imagine if we were better as an offensive unit instead of the disjointed attacking displays we've seen a lot. Imagine Özil at his best, Pepe at his best with Auba centrally. We're craving a left winger more than we need Laca in the side pushing Auba wide.

If Lacazette comes back and we start creating more chances then we’ll have to revisit this.

Auba has been converting at something unrealistic like 70% and he’s basically been our only goal scorer. That’s not an attack that’s working.

 

[Trilly]

Lacazette had 4 away league goals as a £55 million striker it's absolutely appalling and there's no way you can dress it up.

Also somebody else broke this down compared to other strikers and it was actually quite par for course.

I get that Lacazette isn’t WC but this team is about five levels away from him being someone that holds us back. Very confusing.

 

[Trilly]

Not me. Just don’t want Auba shifted wide to accommodate a much lesser player.

Reasonable stance.

Hypothetically lets say you had to choose between these two attacks, the goals scored in brackets.

Auba (20) Laca (15) Pepe (10)

or

Saka (5) Auba (25) Pepe (10)

Are you telling me you’d be happy to pick the attack that works best for Auba as an individual but scores less overall? Why?

Do you back Saka/Martinelli/Nelson to make up that difference?

 

[rich 1990]

Also somebody else broke this down compared to other strikers and it was actually quite par for course.

I get that Lacazette isn’t WC but this team is about five levels away from him being someone that holds us back. Very confusing.

Tis not confusing at all, Trills. What this is a case of is people going too long without an Arsenal game to watch. During the recent hiatus, the level of bollocks chatted on this forum has steadily increased. When we huff and puff on Monday, folks will get back to the real matters at hand.

Also Laca being injured for a while hasn't helped. Players reps go up or down during those periods depending on how the forum is inclined.

 

[Arsenal1508]

Hypothetically lets say you had to choose between these two attacks, the goals scored in brackets.

Auba (20) Laca (15) Pepe (10)

or

Saka (5) Auba (25) Pepe (10)

Are you telling me you’d be happy to pick the attack that works best for Auba as an individual but scores less overall? Why?

Do you back Saka/Martinelli/Nelson to make up that difference?

Take out Nelson and put Auba.

Id back Auba and our two 18 yesr old wonder kids. However, Lacazette is a fine footballer and is always a spark off the bench too. Pepe needs time...I hope so.

 

[Trilly]

Take out Nelson and put Auba.

Id back Auba and our two 18 yesr old wonder kids. However, Lacazette is a fine footballer and is always a spark off the bench too. Pepe needs time...I hope so.

What?

 

[Geofranco]

What?

Most are agenda merchants just trolling. There is no way this team is better off depending on 3 teenagers than one of the best forwards in Europe.

Laca is the best all around forward we have. He is pretty complete. His only problem is lack of explosiveness.

Usually when you're a smaller forward, you gotta be very agile and explosive or be very very good technically.

Laca is not athletic enough or technically devastating enough to always stand out and make the difference.

But he is def a better all around footballer than Auba and Pepe.

 

[Kav]

If Giroud only started 12 away games all season, with City being his only start away against the other top 6 sides, then no, I don't think any reasonable person would slaughter him for that.

Maybe the reason the bulk of Laca's goals have been against the lower sides is because that is where the bulk of his starts happen.

25% of his away starts have come against the 3 relegated teams, so it shouldn't really be strange that he then got the bulk of his goals there.

Thank you for posting this. It seems people will ignore the obvious as long as it suits their agenda. I'm glad to have him healthy again and hope he comes back better. It can't be bad for the team to have 2 good strikers.

I have read some nonsense being posted about how we should sell Lacazette because him starting hinders Auba. I can't understand such silly thinking. When Auba gets injured or his form declines we would be happy to have a scoring Lacazette.

Look at how man u are struggling for goals since they let lukaku go and people over here are upset because we have both laca and Auba. It's so weird.

 

[drippin]

Most are agenda merchants just trolling. There is no way this team is better off depending on 3 teenagers than one of the best forwards in Europe.

Laca is the best all around forward we have. He is pretty complete. His only problem is lack of explosiveness.

Usually when you're a smaller forward, you gotta be very agile and explosive or be very very good technically.

Laca is not athletic enough or technically devastating enough to always stand out and make the difference.

But he is def a better all around footballer than Auba and Pepe.

I think it's not so easy to assess his explosiveness or agility. And of course he is not as fast as Auba, or the most technical player on earth. He is still pretty good at those things. Earlier I put a video here that showed his speed, explosiveness and skills with the ball.

Looking back, we know that Laca played with a knee injury back in 2018. The club didn't inform the fans about it, only afterwards. Same goes this season, him playing with ankle injury the whole start of the season.

Player with an injury, or coming back from an injury will not be as fast or agile as a totally healthy player. Coming back from injury one is usually more careful. So we have had many games when we didn't know about his injuries, and that can affect our image about his qualities.

"Speaking to L’Equipe in their Thursday edition, Lacazette said, “This operation, I would have surely had to do it earlier. But it was complicated…”

The 26-year-old came in for some unfair criticism as his goals dried up prior to the procedure with the club not informing fans that Lacazette was carrying a problem."

http://dailycannon.com/2018/04/lacazette-admits-knee-injury-was-complicated/

""Alex has been playing through this injury for several weeks. He is likely to be back in action in October.""

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/lacazette-Özil-willock-arsenal-injuries-16885763

 

[KrissKringle]

4-4-1-1. Aubameyang can stretch defenders with his runs, Lacazette can play the bergkamp role.

I think this is a working option, since Laca is really good at 1-2's, so he can set up Auba. This worked wonders for Atletico with Griezmann behind Costa.

 

[Hleb's Sirush]

Thank you for posting this. It seems people will ignore the obvious as long as it suits their agenda.

A few weeks ago I posted the post below in this thread. I was hoping it would atleast move the debate further along. Obviously I was wrong and we are back to debating why Laca only scored 4 away goals last season.

My opinion of Lacazette is that he is a good player. He isn't elite yet as he still has some shortcomings. What has been promising imo is that he has improved every season he has been here. 1st season he struggled with the pace and physicality of the league. By the end of that season he had adapted remarkably well to that. 2nd season he seemed to have sorted out the time he needed to get shots off and his all round game improved by leaps and bounds. 1st season he was average to good, 2nd season good to great. If he improves at the same rate, this season is perhaps where he puts it all together and produces performances that atleast get close to the elite. From the little we saw of him it looked very promising. He was on fire before he got injured.

I get the people who want to sell him and use the money to buy world class LW or the people who aren't that keen on him because he pushes Auba wide. I don't agree with them but they certainly can make a sound case for that viewpoint.

What is hard to make a case for is that Laca is rubbish or even average. Haven't heard one coherent argument put forward to explain how he is that bad nor seen any evidence presented to support that opinion.

Maybe that is the reason we continuously get the "he only scored 4 away goals last season" comments popping up quite regularly in here. A cheap put down, which at first glance seems to be a pathetic stat. How can a supposed good forward, playing for a top 6 side only score 4 away goals all season?

First of all from the 19 away games, Laca started only 12 of them. 4 goals in 12 starts, a rate of 1 goal in every 3 matches. Suddenly that looks a lot less pathetic.

Below are last season's away goals by a few selected forwards, their total goals in brackets.

Mane 4 (22)
Son 4 (12)
Firmino 5 (12)
Hazard 5 (16)
Sterling 5 (17)
Aguero 6 (21)

These stats are quite surprising to me. These players are some of the best in the league, yet they have similar number of away goals as Laca. In fact Laca actually does better as he has played less minutes than all those players except Son. You could make a case that actually as their away goals are far smaller share of their total goals, they have far bigger issues performing away from home than Laca. Does this mean these players are useless away from home too? Or maybe it is just generally more difficult to score away from home. Also does this mean Abraham with his 5 away goals in 2 games is so much better than all these players? I don't think he is and no one in their right mind would claim that. Yet it will be used to bash Laca with it.

 

[drippin]

A few weeks ago I posted the post below in this thread. I was hoping it would atleast move the debate further along. Obviously I was wrong and we are back to debating why Laca only scored 4 away goals last season.

 

[Trilly]

Glad we’ve killed the away goals thing now. Onto the next criticism please.

 

[rich 1990]

Glad we’ve killed the away goals thing now. Onto the next criticism please.

His first name is spelled wrong.

 

[Trilly]

His first name is spelled wrong.

Stop being xenophobic Rich.

 

[hydrofluoric acid]

4 away goals. Terrible. Expecting better if he comes back.