Pundit says one Arsenal star is ‘fed up’ with Arteta; also slams his teammate

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Former Chelsea midfielder Andy Townsend spoke on TalkSport about Arsenal stars Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette after their dismal performance against Aston Villa on Sunday.

The Gunners were made to look like a very average side by Villa as they smashed three past Mikel Arteta’s men at the Emirates. Arsenal were poor and deserved to lose, and their attackers have come in for some serious criticism after the game.

Townsend claims that Aubameyang is fed up of playing out wide in Arteta’s system. He also claims that Lacazette isn’t at the same technical level as some of the other strikers in the Premier League, which may explain his misses against Villa and Leicester at the Emirates a few weeks ago.

He said: “The skipper (Aubameyang), looks to me like he’s got the hump and he’s fed up with being wide-left one minute, wide-right the next, maybe up the middle now and again.

“He’s probably thinking: ‘Hold on a minute, I’m the one that has just pen to paper on a new deal. I’m the main man, I’m your skipper. I’ve got more goals in me than anybody else in this club and yet I’m the one flicking it into the box for others to get on the end of it’.

“Lacazette is one of those players to me that, I think, technically, he’s a bit short of being up there with some of the best strikers in the division. And yesterday, he looked to me like it was a moan and a shrug, every time the ball didn’t quite get to him.”

Blaming Aubameyang’s form on him playing out wide is a convenient excuse at the moment. The Arsenal star played on the left-flank in almost every game under Arteta last season, and he managed to score regularly from the wing.

This term, the Gunners skipper has found it extremely difficult to get space inside the box. Aubameyang has not had a shot on target from open play since the game against Sheffield United over a month ago – which is a terrible record for a player of his quality.

Lacazette, on the other hand, has been extremely inconsistent. He scored three times in his first three starts this season, but he has missed easy chances and that has cost Arsenal dearly over the last month.

Arteta needs to change things at Arsenal. He has had success against the bigger teams with his system. But the same cannot be said against smaller sides who have found it extremely easy to deal with the Gunners’ slow and predictable build-up.