Alex Lacazette has urged his teammates to stay focused with the prize of Champions League qualification in their hands if they win their remaining five Premier League games.
The Gunners are currently fourth in the table, however, with just three points separating Sp*rs in third with Manchester United in sixth, there’s no room for a slip-up even with fixtures piling up alongside European commitments.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s home clash with Crystal Palace, Lacazette told Soccer Saturday, “Everything is in our hands now. If we win every game we go to Champions League – we want to go Champions League so we have to do our best all the games to go there.”
Today marks a year since Arsene Wenger announced he’d be leaving Arsenal. His successor, Unai Emery, capped his 50th game in charge with a win away at Napoli on Thursday, a result that further underlined the good work he’s been doing. His record of 32 wins in his first 50 games is the best any manager or coach has achieved in the club’s history.
Reflecting on what the Spaniard has brought to the Emirates, Lacazette said: “There’s a lot of difference. We work tactically more, we do more video as well, how the coach speaks is different than Wenger. It’s different.
“It’s hard to always compare the coaches because they have their own technique to manage the team.”
A run of six clean sheets in the last seven games suggests a renewed focus on tightening up at the back and growing collective confidence heading into the final stretch.
“I think we are better every month, better and better, we are improving,” noted the striker.
“It was one of the targets of the coach to concede less goals, even if this season we concede many goals, away as well he wanted us to keep a clean sheet. We did it and he wants us to do it again.”
“How the coach speaks is different to Wenger”
Yeah, Wenger was a big fan of sentences.
i’d like to hear you spanish sentences dickwad!
True but it was still funny
It actually wasn’t funny at all.
Could I get an English one from you?
Seriously, what a nasty comment from you HelderHughes.
Why are you demeaning a non-native English speaker to defend Wenger? All the great things that man did for us and some of you learn nothing from him.
Here’s an Arsene quote for you:
“When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.”
His name is Andy. And he did call me a dickwad. Haven’t heard that word bandied about by many people with English as a second language.
But crack on with the moral high ground faux offence. After all it’s clearly what the internet was invented for.
I throw about dickwads like they were candy on Halloween, yet English is my third language, hmm ??
32 wins in 50 in all games.
20 wins in 33 PL games.
Not too shabby.
I agree, that is amazing and Unai has done as well if not better than any of us could of imagined back in August. But to compare his stats to our other legendary managers is a little non sensical I feel.
I don’t think many of those managers started their careers with multiple world class players, a 60,000 strong stadium and a club that is regarded as one of the worlds best.
What a nonsensical comment, the changes in football regarding the levels of finance and international media coverage have only been possible for last couple of decades. The internet is only 30 years old, the iphone is about 11, facebook and instagram about the same, no one else has had that possibility.
You ignore the fact that the league is Way more competitive now than for any manager previously.
Arsene inherited the premier league’s greatest defence and players like Bergkamp, also only really had to compete with Man Utd for glory.
In terms of world class that consistently delivers I’m Unais current Arsenal team, I’d only consider Lacazette.
Wenger started with Bergkamp, Vieira and the entire GG backline, hard to argue Emery inherited a better squad
Mixed In terms of squad, Emery has some good players to work with but largely it was a bit of a shambles when Wenger left, low on confidence, tactically at sea. Wenger had to add to the squad he inherited even with old rearguard and Bergkamp there were big deficiencies. We weren’t doing well either, largely underperforming. In terms of finance no doubt Unai has inherited a much better picture to when Wenger came in. BUT Mslintat and Raul have been somewhat negligent buying low hanging fruit and over loading the wage bill. See January when we were largely in… Read more »
Good points, but the wage bill was heavily overload some time ago. As you probably know, Wenger pursued a policy, only changed towards the end of his term, of having a relatively “flat” wage structure with no mega-earners. Overall, this meant that the overall wage bill was still high because relatively average players were paid good money. The result was that we couldn’t (and still can’t, in some residual cases) offload players easily because they wouldn’t leave for a big wage cut! Wenger eased up on the structure because we couldn’t offer big wages to top players and so lost… Read more »
Wenger actually had the input in buying Vieira before he started.
But Wenger was very fortunate to have one of the greatest back 5’s at his disposal when he started. That’s why he was so successful at the beginning, he provided the flair to an already strong defensive team.
Don’t really know much about Arsenal then do you.
There can be no excuses – if we c*ck it up now, it’s down to the coach and the players – but mainly the players, of course. The recent “away revival” particularly, bodes well but we have to keep building on that and try to avoid injuries as best we can and certainly avoid suspensions in the very busy run-in.
We need to finish in third place because 4th place (depending on what Liverpool and spurs do in Europe) will nit guarantee us a Champions’ League spot.
Liverpool doesn’t matter to the equation as they won’t slip out of top 4. It’s chelsea and spuds that matter
It’s only Spurs that could be the problem if heaven forbid they win the Champions League and don’t finish in top 4.
The only way that will happen is if Spurs and Chelsea both win the CL/Europa, plus also Man U come 3rd in the PL, we come 4th, and Spurs and Chelsea come 5th/6th.
That’s so unlikely, I wouldn’t worry about it.
I’m more concerned with finishing above Sp*rs for its own sake.
Here here.
Finish above Spurts for St Totteringham’s day please. Its a lovely tradition.
Great news today (If for now)
Good win for Schitty to beat Spurts. Liverpuddle also cut back.
As Laca says its in our hands again. We MUST do the business against Palace.
For todays game I think it will be Leno, AMN, Mustafi, Nacho, Kola, Terrier, Xhaka, Ozil, Miki, Iwobi and Laca
No. Everything was in Mustafi’s hands…sadly for all of us.