Aubameyang and Lacazette represent Arsenal’s biggest strength and also their biggest weakness

ALEX Lacazette’s return to fitness gives Arsenal fans plenty of reason for cheer. The French striker was voted Arsenal.com’s player of the season in 2018-19 and he appears to be as popular with his teammates as he is the supporters. Lacazette’s bromance with fellow striker Pierre Emerick Aubameyang has already become legion.

Laca could have been forgiven for regarding Aubameyang’s arrival with some suspicion in January 2018. Arsenal passed up on the opportunity to sign Lacazette on at least two occasions before Arsene Wenger finally took the plunge and paid out nearly £50m to Lyon for his signature in the summer of 2017. Six months later, Arsenal paid even more for a 28-year old who plays in the same position.

Aubameyang and Lacazette immediately struck up a rapport off the pitch and soon enough, on the pitch they came to define a changing team. With the likes of Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, Santi Cazorla and Alexis Sanchez edged out of the club, Aubameyang and Lacazette took over the keys to the Arsenal attack.

Alexandre Lacazette is feeling good pic.twitter.com/eu5mn9UnFJ

— Arsenal FC News (@ArsenalFC_fl) October 19, 2019

The high watermark of their partnership came in Valencia in the Europa League semi-final, when the pair worked in tandem to tear the Spanish side apart. Unai Emery was eventually convinced to move to a 3-5-2 system, in part, so that he could play his two most prominent players in central positions together. Emery has never played with a two striker system at any of his other clubs and he began his Arsenal tenure by playing his favoured 4-2-3-1.

Playing with two strikers is atypical in modern football and it runs against Emery’s foremost philosophy of attacking through wide spaces. Mesut Özil has struggled to fit the mould of Emery’s attack for these reasons and this summer, the club splashed out a cool £72m on Nicolas Pepe, considered one of Europe’s most talented emerging wide players and also spent £25m on left-back Kieran Tierney.

The arrival of Pepe all but rules out the prospect of Emery reviving the 3-5-2 system because of the incompatibility of wing-backs and orthodox wide players being selected simultaneously. The club’s three most expensive players are all forwards and so there is a pressure on the coach to make them work in tandem. The issue is that that means Aubameyang has to play in a slightly awkward left-sided role.

Aubameyang still scores plenty of goals from the left wing, but it does cost Arsenal some technical security in their build-up play. The Gabonese only sparks into life in the final third of the pitch and isn’t really interested in combinations or helping full-backs progress to the by-line. In other words, he doesn’t really offer what Emery wants from a wide player, even if his end-product in the penalty area is peerless.

If Lacazette is fit and ready to go for Sheffield, he starts for me. He’s our best player, he connects our midfield and attack, scores goals and brings the best out of Aubameyang. Saka has done well, but not well enough to keep Laca out of the team. #AFC pic.twitter.com/gbR3excLwx

— Adam Keys (@_AdamKeys) October 20, 2019

There are imperfect ways around the issue, but it is an issue nonetheless, Lacazette and Aubameyang want to play in the same position and there is only room for one of them to do so. There is some hope that a front three of Pepe, Lacazette and Aubameyang can find a natural balance together. Indeed, Aubameyang’s presence as a wide player is helpful to Laca.

The Frenchman likes to move away from the frontline to knit moves together. When he leads the line without his partner in crime, Arsenal often don’t fill the penalty box with enough cutting edge. Likewise, Lacazette is a useful foil for Aubameyang because he likes to drop into deeper areas that don’t really interest Auba.

Despite their strong friendship and interchangeable qualities, they don’t often directly combine for goals or for chance creation. Notionally, they interrelate through a blend of attributes, but they do not share an on-pitch bond the way the likes of Yorke and Cole or Bergkamp and Henry did. They are good players with a mix of qualities, but they are not symbiotic.

The rush to sign Lacazette and Aubameyang for more than £100m within six months of one another represented the muddled, scattergun approach that came to characterise Arsene Wenger’s final seasons at Arsenal. Buying both was an act of desperation and one that Arsenal did not think out clearly. Lacazette and Aubameyang represent Arsenal’s biggest strengths and, in a way, their biggest weaknesses too.