Former Liverpool and Nottingham Forest striker Stan Collymore issued a strongly-worded condemnation of the character and performance of Arsenal striker Alexander Lacazette following their 3-0 thrashing at the hands of Aston Villa.
Labelling the performance as the ‘worst’ by a Premier League striker for some time, Collymore was struck by the relative anonymity of the former Lyon hitman. Lacazette has managed just three goals this season and notably missed a golden opportunity to net his fourth in the clash against the Villans.
“Alexandre Lacazette’s performance against Aston Villa was the worst I have seen from a Premier League striker for some time,” Collymore told the Daily Mirror.
“Everybody plays poorly, but what I saw from the Frenchman was an indifference, a lack of working for his team and a lack of doing the basics right, which should worry Arsenal fans.”
Arsenal have recently adapted to a system of five at the back in what looks like a 5-2-3 formation – meaning that typically-prolific Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been pushed out wide.
Since Mikel Arteta took over at the Emirates Stadium, Aubameyang’s average for shots per game has fallen by 0.6, whilst his minutes-per-goal average has drifted from 126 to 173 during Arteta’s reign.
The manager acknowledged he needs to set up his side to better enable Aubameyang to find the net with regularity, saying:
“We certainly are getting in some situations, but the end product is something we have to improve and about the position and his movement and where we can find him, of course we can talk about is this the right or wrong place for him, but when things were working and he was scoring that debate wasn’t there.
“What is certain is that with these numbers, scoring this amount of goals is impossible to fight with the top teams so we have to maintain the numbers that we have defensively in our organisation and for sure we have to improve our numbers attacking-wise if we want to be challenging and if you want to be consistent in winning football matches.”
Read Arsenal Verdict
Arsenal’s lack of firepower is becoming a problem. There are some defensive merits to Arteta’s system, but the Villa game proved they are not infallible.
Having also lost Thomas Partey to injury, it looks like something needs to change for Arsenal if they are to get the most out of their attacking forces.
