Completely disagree that he was taking shots quicker, was one of my early complaints that he seemed to be turning down the chance to shoot too often.

I'm not sure why there is so much focus on him now anyway. He's always been a striker who was going to need service and with Ozil and Ramsey injured and Sanchez AWOL he's not getting any. When those four have all played together he's always looked lively and so have we as a team.

If he's grade B, who is grade A? Morata? Don't make me laugh. Firmino wouldn't manage to do anything in this setup, bet he'd be back in Brazil by now. Lukaku? So the only grade A strikers in the league are Aguero and Jesus? If that's the case, then we're doing alright with Laca.

His goalscoring has nothing to do with his ability or his mentality or ligue 1 or Djibril Cisse. Only one guy at fault.

Coombs wrote:

So the only grade A strikers in the league are Aguero and Jesus?

Whisper it.... Harry Kane

But yeah Laca is on the level of Morata and Lukaku. Aubameyang would be an upgrade but apart from that I don't see a lot of signings who would do better. Vardy would have been similar too.

as mentioned above, the biggest issue is service. he isn't getting a lot of chances, let alone a lot of high quality chances. he is a good technical finisher, from everything ive seen of him before he came to arsenal, and hes scored a few nice goals since hes been here. but most strikers require service from the other attackers. he isnt getting chances on the counter because we dont counterattack, and hes not getting tap-ins and easy chances on cutbacks because our attack is impotent.

i think if you surround him with better players and provide him space, he will come good.

Are we already at the point where we pretend a player is better than he is in order to be negative about the coaching?

Lacazette is just a relatively simple player - he does alot of things well but has no extra ingredients to make him superb. He's short, weak, average paced - fair play to him for maximising his potential and making a great career.

Captain wrote:

Are we already at the point where we pretend a player is better than he is in order to be negative about the coaching?

Do you think the coaching is good?

I don't go to the sessions, but it's the same coaching that turned Giroud from a journeyman to a solid premiership striker.

Lacazette has gone behind plenty of times and either been caught by the defender, muscled off the ball by the defender or simply hasn't gotten a shot away because he takes to long to set himself for the shot - that's not much different to how Giroud was when he arrived so there is scope for improvement, just not much in my opinion. He is also woeful at playing with his back to goal, which I believe is something being worked on extensively.

I think Lacazette has had plenty of openings too but hasn't been sharp enough, not sharp in the mind and not sharp with feet. His touch or balance has let him down a number of times. I have thought it to be the pace of game. He is better than I thought though, in his general play and he will surely get better.

Plenty of openings is a massive overstatement. He's had chances he should have scored, sure. But so has every striker in the league bar He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. He's also gotten shots away he never had a right to, created chances for himself through a combination of close control, agility, and persistence, and he's been foiled by some really excellent saves. Point is, that's not what he should have to do to get a decent chance at goal, and he needs to be getting 4 good chances a game to realistically expect any kind of output in terms of numbers.

He's also fashioned some of our best chances for others as well, bagging some excellent assists and playing some great balls over the top. The kind of ball he should be on the end of.

We're so upside down, it's strange to me that Lacazette is being picked on for anything, really.

Giroud is a solid premiership striker in this team, this season? He's been worse than Lacazette when he's played, maybe the same level, and certainly no better. Whatever he's done before is just about as relevant as Lacazette's time in France, that being, somewhat of interest but not definitive in the present.

Are you suggesting that Giroud didn't improve during his time at Arsenal? Because that's the relevant point that you appeared to miss.

What does that have to do with Lacazette's current goalscoring? That's right. Absolutely nothing.

It has to do with answering a question relating to coaching. If you're going to dive in midway, at least try to read the whole conversation.

It doesn't though, because the question about coaching isn't necessarily about Lacazette improving, it's about getting the best out of him now, which we are not. Giroud's improvement isn't even of this era, either, and Lacazette clearly won't have improved after just 5 months, while Giroud has had many seasons to get slightly better, and is now declining.

I'm not interested in Lacazette improving. My point is that Lacazette isn't scoring the goals he could be right now because our setup doesn't give him enough chances to. I'm also saying that the fact that he does make his own chances from time to time means that he is capable of doing it, but not consistently, and he needs some help, which is not too much to ask. How does that not indicate a coaching problem? And beyond that, how can you not see the horrendous management and systemic coaching problems that the whole team suffers from, and not then say "hmmm, Lacazette probably suffers from it just like everyone else"?

And your argument is that Giroud improved under Wenger, therefore the coaching is fine? It's a weak correlation, and by no means definitively true. Hell, I bet the whole forum would say it's absolutely false. It certainly has no bearing whatsoever on what I'm talking about. You got nuthin' man.

by Captain: "Are we already at the point where we pretend a player is better than he is in order to be negative about the coaching?"

Are you still at the point where you'll blame the players in order to avoid being negative about Wenger?

Okay dude. Whatever you say. Cheers.

Coombs wrote:

Plenty of openings is a massive overstatement. He's had chances he should have scored, sure. But so has every striker in the league bar He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. He's also gotten shots away he never had a right to, created chances for himself through a combination of close control, agility, and persistence, and he's been foiled by some really excellent saves. Point is, that's not what he should have to do to get a decent chance at goal, and he needs to be getting 4 good chances a game to realistically expect any kind of output in terms of numbers.

I don't think anyone is absolving the manager or other players of the blame here but Lacazette isn't blameless either. His touch has let him down a number of times. His movement has been inconsistent and physically he hasn't adapted yet. To assert that Lacazette is being let down by everyone around him whilst himself playing at his highest level is quite kind to him in my opinion and I like what I have seen from him so far but I can't just believe there isn't scope for big improvement.

I feared his slump when his teammates stopped picking him out as much. You could blame the teammates but everyone knows if he's putting them in the onion bag all day long in training. His teammates would be looking for him all the time.

Captain wrote:

I don't go to the sessions, but it's the same coaching that turned Giroud from a journeyman to a solid premiership striker.

It turned him from the top scorer in Ligue 1, leading a team that won the title as unexpectedly as Leicester into a solid premiership striker. Not a very convincing argument for our coaching.

Giroud and Walcott both have over 100 goals for Arsenal. Giroud was top scorer in Ligue 1 in one season but he improved a lot following his arrival here and Walcott was technically on a very low level.

We have problems but in my opinion too, a lot is made out of how individual players seem to be developing here. Not every player we have recruited has a very high ceiling and not every player with with potential will succeed at any club if he isn't the right fit. Good players that have shown potential elsewhere have failed at United, Chelsea, City, Pool, etc.

Lacazette may or may not continue to develop into a better player but we can't pretend that he has come here the complete article regardless of how many in scored in Ligue 1. The Premier League is much harder.

I think Captain is making a perfectly valid argument. Giroud is a class striker, albeit with limitations that cannot be overcome that stop him moving into that top class bracket, he's obviously worked very hard and listened to the coaches. Just as Koscielny has, Bellerin has, Monreal has, Toure did, Hleb did, Adebayor did, and countless others. Hell, Granit Xhaka is a much better player today than he was when he joined, and on and on.

Wenger might have forgotten how to build a winning team, but he's made lemonade with a lot of lemons in the last 10 years.