Arsenal likely to sell Aubameyang and Lacazette in this summer transfer window but how would they fare without them?

MIKEL ARTETA has admitted Arsenal face a summer of flux if they fail to make European football next season.

A fire-sale of top-earning stars could be on the cards as they seek to meet the £60million shortfall of Champions League and Europa League cash.

How would Arsenal fare if they sold Aubameyang and Lacazette?

And the two most likely to plug that financial gap quickly are Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Here SunSport takes a look at how the Gunners would fare without them.

HOW AUBA-UT THAT?

Aubameyang has had a superb season in front of goal

As a joint-winner of last year’s Golden Boot – and a share of the lead in this season’s scoring charts – Aubameyang is one of the finest finishers in the game.

With a record like that, the Gabon star, 30, would be impossible to replace, which is why Arteta
admitted: “I want to keep him under any circumstances.”

Although he’s not the most accurate among the leading Premier League marksmen, the Arsenal captain’s shot conversion is spectacularly good.

Almost two out of every three times he hits the target, he scores.

LAC-ING AN EDGE

Lacazette has been struggling for form this term

But there’s a yin to the Aubame-yang. And that’s the comparatively Laca-lustre finishing of the Gabon golden boy’s strike partner, Lacazette.

Worryingly for Arteta, the Frenchman’s numbers have been getting progressively worse across his Arsenal career.

With Laca’s goals return declining so badly, it’s easy to forget how he’d set the bar pretty high at the start of this season.

The Frenchman scored two goals in his first three games at a rate of 73.5 minutes per goal.

But at the time, he was playing through the pain with an ankle injury that kept him out of the next four matches.

And it seems he still hasn’t fully recovered, with Lacazette having now lost his place in the last two Premier League games to 20-year-old academy product Eddie Nketiah.

YOUNG GUNNS

Nketiah and Martinelli have been thriving under Arteta

And the stats show why Arteta hasn’t been afraid to throw youngsters Nketiah and 18-year-old Brazilian Gabriel Martinelli into the Premier League firing line.

The youngsters have only made eight Premier League starts between them.

This means there’s not much evidence to go on – what statisticians call a small sample size – but what there is shows huge promise.

Playing off the left, like Auba, Martinelli has scored three goals from only 12 shots attempted.

For now, that’s a better shot-conversion rate than any of the current top-20 goal-scorers in the Premier League, apart from Aubameyang and Jamie Vardy.

Nketiah’s chance-conversion rate is also better than nine of the top20 current Premier League goal-scorers.

But the eye-catching stat as far as Nketiah’s concerned is his aerial prowess.

Despite being only 5ft 9in tall, he’s been winning more contested headers than he’s lost.

Again, there’s not much evidence to go on, but it will encourage Arteta that the young Englishman can get off the ground.

Because as things stand, Arsenal struggle to make crosses count.

Having a targetman who can get his head on the ball would give them a Plan B and another way of playing.

And that might be why, if Arsenal have to move Aubameyang or Lacazette on, one of the players they’re being linked with is extremely comfortable under the high ball.

Wolves’ Raul Jimenez has been tipped to move to the Gunners but Arsenal fans should be careful what they wish for, because shoot-on-sight Jimenez is less clinical even than Lacazette.

WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT?

Wood and Jimenez have emerged as a target for Arsenal

If they really do want a Plan B striker, perhaps they should instead look left-field at a player like Burnley’s Chris Wood.

He’s a cheaper option who’d be the perfect heir to former Gunners targetman Olivier Giroud.

Jimenez has scored more than double the number of goals Lacazette has managed, but he’s done so in almost double the game time and needs more shots to find the net.

And for all his many assets, it’s unlikely the fans would go for Wood.

Still, Arsenal certainly will need to sell one or other of their high-earning star strikers – or both – if the worst comes to the worst and they are left in a financial black hole by failing to qualify for Europe.

But, with Nketiah and Martinelli’s physical development still a work in progress, the task of replacing “Lacabameyang” with players of similar quality is harder than it seems.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk