Arsenal are in change and their team needs new and younger players and in the previous transfer window youger players such as Aaron Ramsdale, Martin Ødegaard and Ben White are three new and very interesting signings, but while the team are getting younger players you are always in need of experience.
To recruit older players might not be the best of ideas as we did see Willian and David Luiz joined for a short period of time making their presence but it was not lasting very long, and you are of course in need of such experience all areas of the team as those players will bring in valuable routine.
Lacazette and Aubameyang are both heavily experienced and two players signed by Arsene Wenger going back a few seasons, Lacazette joined in the summer of 2017 from Lyon and Aubameyang being signed in January 2018 for a record fee of £56million from Borussia Dortmund.
Both players are in their 30’s and looking at their stats you will be impressed. Lacazette scoring 51 goals in 132 Premier League appearances, Aybameyang with an even better tally scoring 68 in 122. They are by far the best goalscorers at the club and hopefully Mikel Arteta will see the need of his experienced strikers duo.
Embed from Getty ImagesWhen you try as Mikel Arteta does, to bring a new team in and you like to push for a better performance, you must not do too many changes too fast and forget that while you are reneweing your squad you shall also managed to win football games against opponents that are difficult to defeat.
To change a team too fast can be a heavy challenge and you never really see anyone managing to do that as well as you would hope adding quality of an younger age, but forgetting the relational part of football and the glue that is needed to bring forward good results and that it takes time to get it all together.
Arsenal is a team in transition, but has it gone a bit too fast and will that stop the progress of two of the most experienced players as they are also in a part of their cyclus of life in football that is a bit under treath as we move forward and of course overlooking Lacazette and Aubameyang might be too risky at least for a couple of seasons.
Looking back in the mirror on those great league winning teams at Arsenal you do see a pattern of many players being heavy experienced and of course bringing that to the table as a massive influence for a team able to win trophies, and this of course mixed with a bit of youth, one or two key signings and having a team with an average age of around 28, that is when you win trophies and shows establisment.
If you go all the way back to The Double act in 1970/71 you will find this as a key in a team that had a few youth prospects in Pat Rice, Eddie Kelly, Ray Kennedy and Charlie George, great experience and long term club men like Frank McLintock, John Radford, George Armstrong and Bob Wilson. In there you also had a few recent signings in Bob McNab and George Graham, not to forget Peter Storey and Peter Simpson to complete the picture.
A key from the more recent teams was experience in many positions and especially looking at goalkeepers such as David Seaman and Jens Lehmann and also having a defense not getting carried away with Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and Steve Bould, and of course later winning great with Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Viera in the line-up.
Embed from Getty ImagesTo see Arsenal lift the league trophy again might not be seen in a number of years as the squad looks a bit unfinished, unbalanced and not experienced enough, and for fans the key must be to be patient, since the key is to make players more settled before you start to yet again remove those two experienced forwards, really being a key of this transition.
Hopefully Arsenal will settle and stay calm for a while and trust their new recruits but to see Lacazette and Aubameyang being seen as players that soon should be leaving, would be a total error and hopefully it will not happen, not yet.
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