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Does Lucas Perez deserve more playing time for Arsenal?

Arsenal's Lucas Perez

Lucas Perez has featured sparingly for Arsenal since his £17m arrival from Deportivo La Coruna, but does he deserve more playing time? The stats make a strong case for the Spaniard…

For Lucas Perez, Arsenal's 4-0 win over Swansea on Saturday was a reminder of the size of the task ahead of him. Olivier Giroud and Alexis Sanchez were on target again, Alex Iwobi had a hand in both own goals, while Mesut Ozil returned from illness to knit it all together.

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Lucas watched from the bench as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was sent on ahead of him, and when he did finally emerge in the 79th minute, it was at the same time as the returning Danny Welbeck. Competition for places is fierce, in other words, and Arsenal have Theo Walcott to come back from a calf problem as well.

It all adds up to limited playing opportunities for Lucas, who currently sits somewhere close to the bottom of Arsene Wenger's attacking pecking order. He has made just seven starts in five months at Arsenal, and only two of them have come in the Premier League. It's quite a change for a player who hardly missed a game for Deportivo La Coruna last season.

Lucas' plight can be partly explained by the prolific form of Sanchez, Giroud and Walcott in the first half of the campaign, but the Spaniard can hardly be accused of failing to take his chances. With six goals and four assists in just 677 minutes, he is second only to Giroud for minutes-per-goal involvement among Arsenal players.

Arsenal minutes per goal involvement 2016/17

Player Goals Assists Mins/goal involvement
Olivier Giroud 10 4 59.9
Lucas Perez 6 4 67.7
Alexis Sanchez 16 10 88.0
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain 6 6 107.3
Theo Walcott 11 2 115.8
Mesut Ozil 9 6 135.1

It puts him above Sanchez and Walcott for efficiency, and there have been notable highlights. Lucas marked the first Champions League start of his career with a clinical hat-trick against Basel at the start of December, scoring twice from close-range before completing the treble with a smart finish on his weaker foot.

Wenger praised his "smell for the goal" after that game, and a month later the 28-year-old was instrumental in Arsenal's comeback at Bournemouth. Lucas lifted Wenger's side with his speed and urgency after replacing Iwobi for the final half hour, and his stunning volley for the second goal probably deserved more recognition than it got.

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Four days later, the Gunners were staring at the prospect of an inconvenient FA Cup replay against Preston North End when his ingenious backheel allowed Giroud to bundle the ball into the net for an 89th-minute winner. It was another valuable contribution, but it was followed by his return to the bench at the Liberty Stadium.

Arsenal's Lucas Perez scores his side's second goal of the game
Image: Arsenal's Lucas Perez scored a stunning volley in Arsenal's draw with Bournemouth

Lucas was seen as an alternative to Giroud when he arrived at the Emirates Stadium, but Sanchez's redeployment as a striker has been an unexpected success since then. The Chile international is the Premier League's joint-top scorer with 14 goals, while Giroud has added seven strikes of his own.

It has pushed Lucas out of the reckoning up front, but the Spaniard is just as comfortable on the flanks. His pace, movement and eye for goal are comparable to Walcott's, so it is curious that he has not had more chances during the England international's recent absence.

"I would say he has been underused," said Soccer Saturday pundit Charlie Nicholas this week. "I like his movement, which is very important, especially without Walcott in the side. He was the one guy against Bournemouth who should have come out of it with credit, other than the self-indulgent Olivier Giroud. He's underused, underappreciated and should have been given more game-time."

Arsenal forward Lucas Perez (L) scored a hat-trick for Arsenal
Image: Arsenal forward Lucas Perez scored a hat-trick against Basel

Competition for places is undoubtedly an issue, but why else might Wenger be so reluctant to put him in the team? The Arsenal boss has praised his natural finishing ability and talked up his technique, but there was a clue last month when he said Lucas needed to "adapt to the fight in the duels in England".

A closer look at the stats shows Lucas has only won six duels out of 17 in the Premier League, giving him a success rate of just 35.3 per cent - the lowest of any player in the Arsenal squad - and it's the same story in the Champions League, with two successful duels out of eight meaning he is successful with just 25 per cent.

Those numbers are a reminder that Lucas is still adapting to the physical demands of the Premier League, but he has already developed a habit of producing the goods when it matters, and he can count himself unlucky not to have featured more often. As Arsenal enter the business end of the season, Wenger could do a lot worse than call on Lucas.

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