Alexandre Lacazette has been substituted very often this season. In fact, the Frenchman has only finished six of the matches that he has started so far for Arsenal.
Lacazette was initially signed by Arsene Wenger to add something Arsenal desperately needed up front; a clinical, consistent centre forward, but has disappointed for the most part since his £46 million move from Lyon last summer.
It has been suggested that Wenger feels he has not performed well enough throughout each game to warrant a full 90 minutes out on the pitch, however, Wenger has revealed that he believes that the performance levels of the player generally drop after the 70-minute mark.
Wenger, as quoted by Goal, claimed:
We know the players’ physical qualities and who we expect to drop in the second half or not. Nobody’s tired enough at half-time to be substituted for that, but in the second half you’ll see that sometimes this player will drop in the last 20 minutes.
Lacazette has actually only completed 90 minutes against one of the top six placed Premier League teams and the additional five times have been against Leicester, West Brom, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Swansea.
The 26-year-old has scored just one goal in his previous 13 outings across all competitions and has been sidelined since February. He will be hoping to make a comeback and warrant more minutes with more goals.
