Alex Lacazette says Arsenal must use the Interlull to rebuild confidence after a terrible four weeks that has seen the club make headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The Gunners have recorded just one win in seven games in all competitions, have dropped from third to sixth in the Premier League and seen captain Granit Xhaka clash with fans; an incident that ultimately led to him being stripped of the armband.
Saturday evening’s 2-0 defeat away at the King Power saw Leicester open a nine-point gap on us which in turn led to calls from supporters for the board to sack coach Unai Emery. On Sunday, via a briefing given to David Ornstein, the club said they’d support with the Spaniard until the summer.
Things are grim. And Lacazette knows it.
“We miss confidence and we need the international break,” he said.
“I hope we are going to come back well. We need to work more than we do now to find confidence.”
Lacazette looked very out of sorts at the weekend, snatching at three chances in the first half. While he still provided a physical presence up front and battled hard, it’s obvious last season’s player of the year is not currently enjoying his football.
“We are very disappointed, we had chances in the first half [against Leicester]. We couldn’t score and you need to take your chances in this type of game.
“We have to work again and keep working every day. But I think we didn’t play so bad, we just missed our chances in the first half.
He added: “We want to be top four of course. We are nine points behind Chelsea and Leicester and it is going to be hard but everything is possible in football.”
Lacazette hasn’t been selected for France so after a couple of days off he’ll be back at London Colney to plot an improvement. Arsenal return to action on 23 November against Southampton.
Oh no, not the confidence thing again.
At least we play our best football during the interlulls.
At least he’s admitting there’s a confidence issue. Whatever any of us think about the manager, individual players or team formation tactics & selection, we need to get fully behind them after the international break! That’s the true definition of a ‘supporter’! #COYG
I wonder what the difference is between Laca saying “we’ve got a confidence issue” and Granit saying “we looked scared”. I actually like the last one better, because it’s not pussyfooting around the issue.
Xhaka called it like it is and people didn’t like it then. He was right and is still right now.
It’s not that he wasn’t right. Pretty obvious the team lacks confidence and flow. It’s declaring it to the media and the rest of the league that’s stupid. You shouldn’t show weakness to your opponents.
Must work harder….groan.
Good luck with that mate, you need it.
can someone tell me if it’s true that a few days back Laca liked a post demanding emery be sacked or was it just some media nonsense?
True.
Says all you need to know, really.
We need to change manager during the interlull
A very promising season has so quickly descended into this!
Because our performances are so numbing I watched the 2nd half of Pool vs ManC. How different the attitudes are from both sets of players, managers, staff and fans – no one wants to lose, they try so hard to win, to go forward, to score, to defend.
What has Arsenal become, while still raking in one of the highest revenues in club football. Sigh!
We won’t be tops in revenue for long, if it continues like this
Off topic
Some clarity on Nketiah’s situation. Is he currently injured? Haven’t seen him be selected for Leeds’ recently. Not even on the subs.
We are ready to give the much needed surpot but the club should also get ready of Emery other wise all our efforts are not going to work.So the theme is EMERY OUT no more excuses.
Only to have it knocked down to the ground once the interlull is over by whoever we are playing next.
Maybe some shooting practice for everyone wouldn’t go amiss!
We have some very good players, who are devoid of confidence and the manager not knowing his best team, constantly tinkering, being devoid of tactical and substition nous, adds to the draining of confidence.
Liverpool have achieved by playing almost the same team, game after game, week in week out.
For gods sake, pick your best defenders, pick your best midfield, pick your best forwards and show them some confidence by sticking with them….!
It worries me that in training matches our strikers are probably creating and bagging loads of goals, because they’re playing against our own defenders. As we’ve seen from the past few games, once they then go and play against defenders who know how to do defending, we don’t create shit.
We are not talking about it too much, but I think we are paying a heavy price for letting Ramsey go. Xhaka is undisciplined and slow Torreira is good but no – his is not Kanté, Santi or Verrati (and not even Ndidi, Fernandinho, Fabinho or Henderson) Willock very promising, but very young and still in the making Ozil is class forward, but he will never be able to defend at an acceptable level Our only player who can link our forwards and the defense is Guendouzi. But it seems to me that it is way too much of an… Read more »
I watched Liverpool – City yesterday with de Bruyne at the same position Özil was against Leicester. Not ONCE did de Bruyne track back and help the defense. NOT ONCE. Contrary to what Özil did… but… Özil is a liability and de Bruyne is a total football player.
De Bruyne was poor against Liverpool, yesterday. He gave the ball away constantly but you won’t hear that from the pundits
Mate the celebration the media had when de brune beat ozil record of fastest/ most assist in least games or first 50 What ever it was. I didnt even know the record existed until it was all over the media.
My thing is De Bruyne is the media darling and Ozil the adpoted step child and the media says Ozil is weak, should be sold, not worldclass etc but celebrated hard when de bruyne beat his record.
There’s a bit of revisionism regarding Torreira I’ve noticed on this site; saying he’s no Kante and whatnot. There was a reason he was being compared to Kante last season, and I for one believe he’s in fact good enough to be our anchor. He’s being terribly mismanaged, as is EVERY player in our squad. That’s on Emery. #Emeryout
I’ve always thought Torreira was overrated to be honest. He’s had a couple of good performances but a lot of bang average ones and stinkers.
I like Torreira and he started really well, but he started to falter at the end of last season. If we were honest we would admit that he’s not physically strong enough to be the enforcer in our midfield. We don’t have anyone to do it either.
I think he will leave in the summer and go back to Italy.
I will take the down votes.
bennaccer won AFON with Algeria and has looked good for AC milian so far, plays the deep lying anchor well for a guy thats quite young. We had 1st option to buy him back to Arsenal for 16mill – Oportunity missed if you ask me. he is prob going to get better and cost a lot more than 16mill.
Elbon, exactly my thoughts. He can’t perform well knowing he has no confidence from the manager who plays him only in cup matches and when he has no choice. Torreira can be on the level of Kante, there is no reason, he showed some amazing performances last season and could be a complete B2B MF while obviously being the best at DM taskas primarily.
He could have been a 100M player by now with the right guidance. One thing more to blame on this dud of a manager.
This is utter bullshit. Can you imagine any of the Invincibles going “Aw shucks, the manager doesn’t like me as much as the other fella, I’ll never perform as well as I should?” Fuck no. Hell, the manager preferring somebody else should be a reason TO perform as well as you possibly can. We have too many fair-weather players who need everything to be juuust right, else they get performance anxiety and wilt. Tony Adams said on TV after the Leicester game that changing the manager doesn’t solve the problem. I have real doubts about the caliber of the squad… Read more »
“There’s a lot of reactionary bullshit around how things will be sunshine and rainbows as soon as we sack Emery”
I agree but the philosophy has to change. We have gone from a philosophy of ‘dont care who the opposition is lets impose our attacking game and put them to the sword’ to ‘shit its Huddersfield, quick midfield hide!!’.
Thats what really needs to change.Agreed there is no silver bullet but the mindset has to change. destroying what ever confidence we have left.
Even in his prime it was known that Ozil wasn’t good in defence so why mention that part of his game. He still one German player of the year on 5 occasions and was one of the most creative players in the world for Real and Arsenal.
He was German player of the year on 5 occasions because that’s just the way identity politics works, Germany like most western countries are being overrun with virtue signalling idiotic liberals, Merkel couldn’t wait to get snapped with Ozil after he won, just to show the world how excellent diversity is….. Just watch any award ceremony, the winners are mainly ethnic minority’s and LGBT. And this isn’t a dig at ethnic minorities or LGBT, i believe wholeheartedly in freedom of expression and equality of rights and opportunity, I’m just saying the liberal media’s obsession with diversity clouds their decision making,… Read more »
Racist undertones, Rich? You seem overly concerned with people’s “ethnic origins”. Mesut won those awards on merit, there is no quota system in Germany.
You’re extremely naive if you think this isn’t the way things work. These comments are not in anyway racist, but nice deflection tactic….. Ozil was used by the German establishment as a political tool for a long time, which he did very well from, particularly from a marketing perspective, and fair play to him, I don’t begrudge anyone success in life. If you really think Ozil is as good as his reputation suggests? he’s a truly world class player? Then you haven’t been paying attention, he’s inconsistent, into his 7th season at the club, and he’s only produced consistently in… Read more »
I do think Mesut is a world class player and always have. If you think he’s dross that’s your problem, but I see and appreciate what he brings to a football match. Being a German of Turkish descent certainly hasn’t made it easier for him, he’s succeeded because of his talent and determination. I’m not naive Rich, but you come across as racially biased, and if you don’t see that then I think you are the one with the problem.
If you look at that game yesterday, Ozil’s defensive responsibility was very clear. His job was to prevent Ndidi from dictating the play from deep. Ozil was on him though out, even followed him deep to our box. Defense is not always “running arrrand” and “getting stuck in”. Sometimes, it’s merely preventing the opposing player from from doing what he is good at
WoW
“western countries are being overrun with virtue signalling idiotic liberals”
I could hear the collective groans as soon as I read this.
Only from inside your own echo chamber…. try getting outside the M25.
I’ve seen Ozil defend and make tackles and do it well, but that’s not his primary role.
It’s too late now I guess, but Ozil is the type of player you build a team around or you don’t buy/play.
The current Arsenal team remind me a lot of my wardrobe. It’s full of things I thought looked good on me or I would grow into etc but most of it is out of date and ill fitting and just a waste of money…sigh.
I’ve seen Ozil defend and make tackles and do it well, but that’s not his primary role.
It’s too late now I guess, but Ozil is the type of player you build a team around or you don’t buy/play.
The current Arsenal team remind me a lot of my wardrobe. It’s full of things I thought looked good on me or I would grow into etc but most of it is out of date and ill fitting and just a waste of money…sigh.
Ramsey is annoying Juventus fans because he’s always injured, except when it’s time to play for Wales. Sound familiar?
When you’re talking about building confidence by not playing football there’s a problem no?
Offtopic: We have tried to play without Ozil, Ceballos, Willock, Torreira and now Xhaka. Our midfield is always bad and unbalanced. Do you know who is always playing and is immune to the critics? Guendouzi! In my opinion (and I know I will get criticized for that) he is the player who destabilize team the most. The best midfield performances under Emery came when we play with pivot Xhaka-Torreira and Xhaka-Ramsey. This are facts and not some subjective thoughts. When was the last game when we dominated midfield with Guendouzi? Was there any? The best thing for Emery to do… Read more »
We’re running out of steam on Xhaka so it’s Guendouzi next.
Guendouzi is the anti-Ramsey: he looks brilliant doing very little.
I feel bad criticising Guendouzi, because talent-wise, he’s unbelievable. The problem is, it isn’t being harnessed (which you could pretty-much say for every other player in the squad as well – look how Willock and Saka have fallen off of cliffs, performance-wise, recently).
If someone could teach him positional sense and get him to move the ball quicker he could be a colossus in midfield.
I agree the ability of our players aren’t being harnessed. It’s just here and there I see posts pop up about “oh it’s not Xhaka, it’s Guendouzi” hence my post.
Some people just HAVE to have a whipping boy which begs the question in the absence of Xhaka, who is next?
Someone like a coach you mean?
I think you might be on to something there.
Crash Fistfight true. His management has been piss poor with little improvement from last season. With the right coach, he would have turned to a 100M player by this season end (just like most of the young players). Just think of what Lampard is doing with those Chelsea young lads and what Gadiola did with his own crop of young players at Barcelona and realize what an over hyped but a huge failure Emery is in Arsenal currently. Makes me begin to also question the decision making capacity and capability of the current board of Arsenal (especially after there latest… Read more »
Perhaps Laca can spend the interlull brushing up on his wingback skills, he’s already had to master being a midfielder. It’s no wonder he looks so unhappy. Perhaps we should just field ten defenders and hope one of them can score a header from a corner, seems to be the Emery ideal.
if U-no fucking clue Emery survives the interlull, it’s can only be becos the preferred replacement is not yet available. I hope.
You hope or you wish? Both are meaningless to a board that called its fans “noise makers”.
Oh yes, we do make noises during matches and they took a cue from there to label us. Unfortunately so!
Southampton is a big, big game. If we don’t beat them & despite all the briefings about the Board continuing to support Emery, I can’t see the current situation continuing – Emery will be sacked.
We said that for a couple of previous games, Leicester the most. But still radio silence from the club except that Ornstein info.
Crazy, he should have been sacked already and if there is no strong candidates ATM Freddie must be a better choice short term.
But I don’t think there are no good candidates, that’s impossible.
Agree with most of what you say but don’t think Leicester playing the way they are was ever going to be the game that finally pushed the Board into action. However, Southampton …….. has to be the final straw surely ?
Sacking him means that they failed in getting the right choice first time after Wenger, and they see it as an indictment of some sort on their decision making. They have a window of opportunity to remedy that but they’ll rather swim or sink with Emery. They are either bold, reckless or bunks. Time shall tell. We are waiting for them.
I get what you’re saying & it’s a good point but I’d be very surprised if those who will make the decision to sack Emery or not don’t have performance bonuses linked to the team qualifying for Champions League football. Once it looks like that their bonus is slipping away they’ll swallow their pride – hopefully!!
Can we get a new manager as well whole we’re at it?
I don’t think the players understand or even like the manager. He’s had a decent amount of time to prove himself – and he hasn’t. If the board are willing to keep Emery till the end of the season I find that shocking!
Absolutely shocking and disgusting to me.
You can see the players have no confidence at all at the moment, and the fans have no confidence in the team or manager,
Something has to give for that to change, hopefully two or three top performances after the international break, otherwise we are deadlocked into a bad situation which the only way out of has to be emery leaving I think,
More testing times ahead I’m afraid
As much as i like Laca, does his opinion really count? He clearly doesnt want to sign a new contract and who can blame him. This is in no way a dig at him, but for him to come out and say “we need the interlul to build confidence” is nothing more than b/s media duties
Slightly off-topic, but why was Blogs getting annoyed at the use of the word ‘noise’ in Ornstein’s article? Isn’t it his journalistic choice, rather than a verbatim account of what has been said to him by some random within the club?
Ornstein uses quotation marks around “noise” to indicate that the word IS verbatim, not his interpretation.
Confidence is lost through Emery and his inability to organise a team. The squad is better than we have had for some years, but look confused under the manager’s constant tinkering and indecisiveness.
I’m sure Unai is a decent person, but conceding as many goals so far as the 98/99 did in a whole season along with empty seats at the stadium cannot continue.
If he was confident in this team and the manager he wouldve signed a new deal already. Actions speak louder than words.
Thats kinda the point i was trying to make, but got several thumbs down because of it lol
This time last year we gave as good as we got against Liverpool.
What happened to this team?
It has a crap manager.
A crap and clueless manager.
It’s the same ‘crap manager’ as that game last season…..
The noise coming out of the club is very interesting at the moment, as Blogs states in his piece today. So the club are backing Emery all the way to at least the end of the season? Personally, I don’t believe a word of it. I’m certain that Edu and co now accept that Uni is toast and needs to be moved on – they just don’t know what to do next. The problem now is trying to find a replacement who is both available and who will make us a much better side. Just as towards the end of… Read more »
Agree apart from the last paragraph(will give the new management some more time to do their thing).
Hang on, what just happened here…agreeing with a Fatgooner post
The times they are a worsening…
but seriously, apart from the last paragraph, its spot on mate, for me.
Thanks. I forgot to say that a half-empty stadium will probably help to focus the owner’s mind. Once top-four has gone just watch the stadium empty out.
Conveniently missed this part of his quote didn’t ya:
“Last season when we were unbeaten in 20 games in a row nobody said anything about the coach or manager,” said Lacazette.
Turning into DM with your agenda now!
Yawn, I have heard it all before, stop talking off the pitch and start working hard on the turf! This is how you should be doing your talking.
What ever u say mate, Laca, but I’ll be on vacation from this walkytalky side untill end of January. Glad that you get paid for being in there. Based on our oncoming schedule all is over at end of January. Thats when Emery is out.
We’ve dropped 10 points over last 4 league matches which we should have at very least gotten 8. It would have kept us around 25pt mark. Much of it coincided with Lacazette going out injured and us having to shuffle Auba on his own with the ineffective Pepe and young Saka supporting. Then we made things worse for ourselves goading someone who was at least willing to stand up and be counted as the captain. We now look rudderless again with Unai back to his dithering between 4 players on rotation and zero organizational enforcement in midfield AND at the… Read more »
Things are grim indeed. Interlull seems happier than match weeks. Waaaaao