Looks like Alexandre Lacazette has been keeping his eyes open and options available for his next move, having spoken to French TV, who yesterday released his comments about having multiple offers from teams and also wanting to play for a Champions League club.

I’m sure you do Alex, I’m sure you do. But let’s not forget that the reason you have ‘missed’ the Champions League, is because you are nowhere near a good or elite enough striker to play your part in securing a spot for the team who have been paying your wages for the last six years. Handsomely too, I might add, if the stories of you earning circa £180k-per-week are true.

That’s mental, when you think about what Lacazette earns and what we actually get for that, isn’t it? I just looked it up. Lacazette in the Premier League is the 23rd highest paid player. He earns more than the following Premier League players:

  • Roberto Firmino
  • Kai Havertz
  • Christian Pulisic
  • Bernardo Silva
  • Heung-Min Son
  • Wilfred Zaha
  • Sadio Mane
  • Diogo Jota.

That was just a small selection I picked based on their positions and output on the pitch that they all occupy. There were many more of far superior quality of player to be getting paid more than our waddling Frenchman who despite having played over 200 times for Arsenal in all competitions, has never really looked like he can last 90 minutes in a game of football. A man whose 107 goal and assist contribution works out over his Arsenal career at 0.53 contributions. The replacement of Olivier Giroud who was supposed to be an upgrade, has actually ended up being WORSE than the handsome Frenchman, whose goal contributions were 0.58 over his Arsenal career, which also included an additional 51 appearances. Giroud therefore did it over a longer period of time, offered more in terms of the player he was for us, left without too much of a fuss and who has demonstrated that he can still do it. With the way Lacazette trots around the pitch offering so little at 30 years of age, by the time he gets to 35 I’ll be surprised if he can last the first 45 of any game.

The reason we will probably fall short in the Premier League this season will be our lack of goal threat and that – whilst not entirely his domain and his responsibility – is on him and his inability to essentially offer anything useful as a forward right now. Too many Arsenal fans put too much stock in his link up play and now that even that has disappeared, we are looking at this shell of a centre forward who now says he wants to play Champions League. Do me a favour. If he’s hoping that his performances are putting him in the window for a nice contract and a fancy move then he should probably think again. He’s better to be offering himself up to anybody that’ll take him on Gumtree.

I tell you something for free Laca, if you get a Champions League club to take you on next season, it’ll be one in which you aren’t going to see out the group stages, because none of the clubs expecting to go deep in the competition will have a centre forward who is the easiest to mark in the Premier League and who doesn’t score goals.

The very fact that Arteta will have his press conference today and so many of us will be praying that you still aren’t available for selection, thereby giving Eddie Nketiah another shot against Chelski, shows just how shoddy your form has been. Nketiah as our other option just shows how desperate things are for us right now.

So yeah, you head off to the sunset in June, Laca, and I’m sorry to say I won’t be looking back on your time at the club with too much warmth of a successful career at The Arsenal.

As for tomorrow night, we’ll get some team news today and Arteta will of course talk up his side’s chances, but he’s going to have to pull some kind of rabbit out of a hat tomorrow evening because I’m not sure I’ve met an Arsenal fan that doesn’t think it’ll all end rather grimly at Stamford Bridge. Our confidence is on the floor and I’m not sure how the players are feeling after three very stinging defeats against teams with nothing to play for. But that’s his job and my hope is that he has some kind of change of something that will ignite the belief back in to players and fans. I have no idea how because it appears as though our options are limited, but perhaps we’ll see a change of formation? Or a shuffling of some of the pieces he does have to play with tomorrow? I’m looking for something to be said today in the press conference that suggests he has an idea to try something different, but when you look at our bench options or squad rotation options right now, it doesn’t exactly scream ‘depth’, does it? When you look at the bench of Chelski from the weekend FA Cup semi final just gone, it tells the difference in depth, as they brought on Silva, Kante, Lukaku, Loftus-Cheek and Ziyech, leaving Pulisic, Sarr and Saul on the bench. When the two teams line up tomorrow we’ll be looking at Azeez, Ogungbo, Zwanson and Hutchinson making up our subs, so it looks like it might be a pretty tough one for us to deal with.

I’m hoping that Arteta confirms that Tomiyasu is back fit and training and might even make the bench tomorrow. Of course he shouldn’t be risked but if we can have him training this week, on the bench, maybe give him 10 minutes at the end, it’d give me hope to see him in the first team sooner rather than later. That would be a boost at a time in which positive news is a bit thin on the ground for us, kind of like our first team squad options right now. But good news would be welcomed in whatever format. So here’s to hoping on that one.

Other than that, there isn’t really a lot else going on so I’ll hold my tongue further until we get more team news and the press conference later today.

Catch you all tomorrow.