Yeah exactly mate. To add on to what you say - that’s the thing, I think he has proven to be a real asset thus far this season that for me personally he is beginning to hit those highs where I have broader expectations of him. It’s essentially only a credit to himself, so a bit of a false negative when I said what I did.
He’s virtually unrecognisable from the guy we saw last season
Lacazette just fits really well with what Emery is trying to do. A lot of the attacking game is based on getting the ball to the fullbacks and take defenders out of the middle of the pitch for others to get scoring opportunities in the box. Bellerin has five assists, Kolasinac seven and Monreal six.
How they go about that from what I’ve seen is playing forwards in and them giving it back to those overlapping fullbacks or play Lacazette in and let him have triangles/give-and-go’s between midfielders who are closing in and give them a scoring opportunity or let them play those fullbacks in if the first opportunity fails. Because of his ball control and his decent eye for a pass he is very effective in that manner of play. More so than Aubameyang who isn’t one to play with his back to the goal. At the same time that explains why his goalscoring lacks a bit.
@Trion. Not sure I would say he is better than Aubameyang for reasons stated above. It’s just a better fit. But if a choice had to be made between Aubameyang or Lacazette I’d still pick Aubameyang tbh.
I was watching the BEIN analysis of the match, and Robert Huth went on about how yes the ref should be criticized for giving the penalty, but ultimately “it’s the player that does it, Lacazette goes down too easily”.
What a perfect example of how a pundit who’s probably watched less than five Arsenal matches all season attempts to paint him as a diver basically, when we all know that almost every time a challenge comes in on Lacazette in the box, he’s way to honest and stays on his feet to try and get a shot off instead of just going down.
In fairness to Sam Allardyce of all people, he replied with “if he doesn’t go down, he never gets the penalty”.
It’s funny how pundits never mention this. Because even when a foul is made and a player doesn’t go down they are not rewarded with a free-kick or penalty. You have to ‘show’ the referee something.
It’s amazing how referees can’t seem to get it through their heads that it’s possible for a foul to be committed without the player falling down. It just continues to baffle me.
If such a big deal is made of diving or exaggerating contact, then one of the best ways to deter it is to actually award fouls when they occur even without the player going to ground. How can you blame the players for going down when they know they’ll get absolutely nothing if they don’t? It’s actually foolish not to hit the deck at this point and make it obvious to the thick referees what’s happened.
I wasn’t honestly all that impressed with his performance. Did some good things holding up the ball (our favorite Giroud line) but he was so slow when scoring opportunities came his way. I felt he was too slow in his decision making, kept getting blocked when he had an opening to take a shot at goal. Nice that he went down and won that penalty, otherwise it was a frustrating performance imo.