Sydney: France striker Alexandre Lacazette took only a quarter of an hour to get his first goal for Arsenal as the EPL club opened their pre-season tour with a 2-0 win over Sydney FC in front of 80,000 fans here Friday.
The 26-year-old, who moved from Olympique Lyonnais this month for a fee British media put at 46.5 million pounds ($60 million), paid an almost immediate dividend on his five-year deal at the Olympic Stadium here.
Lacazette came on for his Arsenal debut as part of a 10-man substitution in the 68th minute and was on hand 15 minutes later to side-foot the ball into the net from winger Alex Iwobi’s cutback.
“It is important for him to get that off his shoulders because you are expected to score if you are a striker,” manager Arsene Wenger told reporters. “You could see that he was happy but overall what we were looking for was to play at pace and to develop our collective game and for long periods. We managed to do that.”
Arsenal who also play Western Sydney Wanderers, Saturday before heading north to China, had taken an early lead when captain Per Mertesacker took advantage of some hesitancy in the Sydney FC defence to score with an overhead kick.
The Australian champions had goalkeeper Andrew Redmayneto thank for not succumbing to a heavier defeat as the 28-year-old, who had a two-week trial at Arsenal as a youngster, pulled off a string of fine saves.
“We had tough opposition because they fought for every ball but at the end of the day their goalkeeper was the man of the match,” Wenger pointed out.
Reuters