Arsene Wenger has admitted Alexandre Lacazette is suffering from a crisis in confidence after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang took his place.

Striker Lacazette has struggled to adapt to English football since his £52million arrival last summer and wasted two late chances to steal a point for Arsenal in Saturday's 1-0 North London derby loss to Tottenham.

Aubameyang now looks set to become top dog up front at the Emirates.

Gunners boss Wenger believes the new boy's presence has affected Lacazette, who has now been relegated him to the substitutes’ bench.

Although Spurs thoroughly outplayed Arsenal, Lacazette could have nicked a point... (
Image:
Reuters)
...after coming on as a sub, but spurned two decent opportunities and it ended 1-0... (
Image:
PA)
...leaving the Frenchman stuck on one goal since December 2 (
Image:
Reuters)

“Maybe the confidence is not at its highest because he has seen a competitor coming in," said Wenger.

“But, for him, one against one with the keeper, he is still a good goal-scorer. He has gone through difficult periods before.

“He works hard in training, works on his finishing. I don’t know what happened, did he not touch the ball well? It can happen, it is a fraction of a second. But he created two chances. That is a quality as well.

“He will score goals. He is a goal-scorer, he scored goals in his whole career. He will score again.”

Aubameyang is now Arsenal's No1 striker — though he cannot play in Europe (
Image:
Action Images via Reuters)

Lacazette will be given a chance to rediscover his scoring touch on Thursday when Arsenal visit Sweden's Ostersunds for the first leg of a Europa League last-32 tie.

Aubameyang is ineligible as Borussia Dortmund, the club he left last month to join the Gunners, have dropped down into the competition from the Champions League.

Wenger confirmed that he will take a strong team to Scandinavia despite the snow and freezing conditions, as winning the Europa League could be a side now seven points adrift of fourth-placed Spurs' best chance of making next season's Champions League.

“I would have anyway gone for it, especially as we have no game between the two matches.

“I will play the normal team because it is one of the opportunities we have especially because we don’t play in the FA Cup. There is no reason why I should rest players.”

Full-back Hector Bellerin was critical of the team’s approach against Tottenham at Wembley, but insisted there is still enough time to turn the season around.

Bellerin said: “I feel like in the first half we were just waiting for things to happen. We didn’t have the initiative to go forward, to keep the ball and that’s our game.

“If we can’t play our game things don’t go our way. So it’s something to learn from, and there are plenty of games to play.”

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