Peter Crouch singled out attacker Alexandre Lacazette for praise after Arsenal’s 4-1 win on Thursday night in the Europa League against Rapid Vienna.

The Gunners continued their 100 per cent run in the Europa League with a convincing victory at the Emirates Stadium, with 2,000 home supporters in attendance.

It’s been a struggle for Mikel Arteta’s side domestically, but they have topped their Europa League group with a game to spare and will be seeded for the knockout rounds.

With several players rested ahead of this weekend’s North London derby against Tottenham in the Premier League, plenty of the fringe men in the squad seized the opportunity to impress in front of a small crowed.

Crouch was left impressed post-match with the performance of senior Arsenal star Lacazette, who was used in a number 10 role  rather than in his usual centre-forward position.

The 29-year-old Frenchman opened the scoring with a thunderous effort from outside the box and was heavily involved during the contest.

“Listen, he’s given the manager food for thought. Off that performance today I’d say so,” Crouch responded on BT Sport 2 when asked if Lacazette could start against Spurs this weekend (10:05pm, 3 December).

“I thought he was magnificent. He’s involved in everything from that deeper role, he was dictating possession, he was passing the ball sharply, he scored a fantastic goal, he had other opportunities to score.”

(Photo by Tullio Puglia – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

TBR’s View:

It may be too soon to throw Lacazette into the number 10 position against Spurs, but it was certainly an interesting experiment against Rapid Vienna and it appeared to suit him.

Lacazette ended a goalscoring drought on Thursday after previously netting in September and it’s not quite happened for him of late in his striker position, which has seen him drop out of Arteta’s XI.

But it looks like he could be an answer to help injecting an extra attacking threat to a team that has been struggling to score and it helped having him make late runs into the box.