Arsene Wenger says Lucas Perez can thrive at Arsenal having proved his goal scoring mettle in La Liga converting chances for Deportivo La Coruna even though they were at a premium.
The Spaniard scored 24 goals in 58 appearances during his two-year spell at the Riazor – enough to turn the head of the boss, who says he was impressed by the striker’s all-round play and pace.
“I’m happy because I believe he has the qualities to integrate into our team very well,” Wenger told Arsenal Player after €20 million deal was completed.
“He’s not only a goalscorer, he’s a guy who combines well with partners, who can give a final ball and makes good runs.
“I think people will be a little bit surprised maybe, because nobody knows him very well. He has travelled a bit across Europe.
“He’s a late developer in this position because he has always played on the flanks. He’s got a good eye for goal and had an outstanding season last year in a team that didn’t create too many chances.
“I’m confident. He has pace, good technical levels, is a good finisher and he has the ingredients to be a success. It’s always a little bit of a gamble to come from one country to another, with different championships, but I believe it was a gamble worth taking. I’m excited about that.”
He continued: “I didn’t have many hesitations. I watched him play, I watched his qualities. sometimes you have to make quick decisions, this was one of those, but it was not a too difficult one.”
Perez is believed to have trained with his new team mates today and will do so tomorrow before bidding farewell to Deportivo, the team he supported as a boy, in a pre-arranged press conference back in Spain.
Well it is always nice gambling with someone else’s $$$. Hope this gamble pays off
would you rather Wenger gambled on players with his own money? do you think that would make him a better buyer of players? do you think Mourinho & Guardiola should also gamble on players with their own money? do you think Rooney should captain England until 2018?
“I believe it was a gamble worth taking. I’m excited about that.” Classic Wenger. He really does love to “gamble.” He loves the us against the world thought process. He loves to stand strong in the face of criticism. He had to throw that quote in, he just had to. Could have taken the “easy” way a number of times and signed a world class striker over the past few years. In fact, probably could have sold that world class striker and made money off of it this year if $$ was the concern. Anyways, it is a gamble and… Read more »
LOL – All the thumbs down. The same fans that turn on Giroud in a heartbeat. Oh let me guess, everyone on here is a massive Giroud fan and has always had his back. As I said – I hope Perez succeeds. But it is a “gamble” and if he doesn’t succeed then many of these down thumbers will be out in full force. For the past few years the team has clearly been in need of a quality striker who can convert the numerous chances we create (see Ozil stats). This would have given us the title last year… Read more »
Keep yer Allans on
Caustic Unreasonable Negative Taunt
If former-Leicester (now Everton) Steve Walsh and Koeman are looking to sign him, then I really think this gamble is worth to take.
Agree ?
Disagree ?
What a handsome looking chap.
The shirt helps
I love the mix of nationalities in our team. A perfect blend of French, German, English and Spanish
With some Chiles to taste
And Turkish, Albanian, Egyptian, Nigerian.
With Mustafi and Xhaka we have the low-key Albanian contingent
Can’t forget the Welsh Jesus!
and don’t forget Columbia! Oooooosssspina!!!
Brazil – Gabriel
Czech – Cech
oh and of course the other planet that Ozil comes from 🙂
Ozil is so sick of Earth, he runs into space every chance he gets.
Hat. Coat.
The blend is perfect when they win the league
Does he drink red bull and chew tobacco? There’s a song in this somewhere.
I heard he drinks battery acid and eats tab ends
Let’s hope he’s able to challenge Giroud for his starting spot, competition is a beautiful thing. From the few highlights i’ve seen of him he’s definitely quicker than the handsome french which would be a nice change up top Walcott obviously can provide speed but he lacks so much when up top that it makes the speed sort of irrelevant as he often times just disappears.
What happened to Alexis up front?
If we started Bellerin, Gibbs, as fullbacks, Alexis and Theo on the wings and Perez up top we might have the fastest team in world football, and Mesut is no slouch either
Mezits pace was evident the way he moved for that header on weekend. He just ghosted then bam was at full speed into that box. I enjoyed his run.
I’m pretty sure Lucas will be playing mostly at RW and we kinda transition in and out of a 4-4-2 no and again so he’ll be a RS too ^^
Nothing comperez to you Lucas! Welcome to Arsenal <3
Gamble….quick decision….I don’t like these phrases particularly, I hope he means this in the context of, other big teams like the supposed barca interest, came sniffing round and he had to move fast. Otherwise it’s a panic buy
Well he explained reasonably well why he thinks it is a gamble and why it was a quick decision. You just so comfortably ignored all that!
@Jijo- “sometimes you have to make quick decisions”. Why? Why make quick decisions when him and his scouts have plenty of time to decide who to go for. I’m just saying that his choices of words, which is normally very good and to the point, makes it sound like he’s sat down for a couple of hours, watching clips of him and decided to buy him after being snubbed by the others he have pursued before hand. So no I didn’t ignore the context of what he said or what was wrote in the article, instead I formed an opinion… Read more »
Yes, but you see, this thing about deciding who to go for…
sometimes who you decide to go for fucks you up by deciding not to come….
sometimes the agent of who you decide to go for fucks you up by convincing the player not to come….
sometimes the club of who you decide to go for fucks you up by deciding not to sell….
sometimes an even richer club than you fucks you up by buying the player instead…
…well, bugger me if isn’t harder buying a football player than buying pork in a supermarket.
Clearly not the first choice but then again its pragmatism. All these moron journalist calling it a panic buy don’t even understand how the market works. Firstly we would have had a range of potential targets. Much of the timing is out of our hands as it depends if the player is motivated (and his agent) to come to us or if the club wants to string out the process to see how high a price they can fetch with other potential suitors. Then there is the Euros. Sure Wenger may have been able to conclude on this deal earlier… Read more »
Not to mention that we have limits to the size of the squad imposed on us by the Premier League and it is bloody hard to offload players from any PL club nowadays because they expect bigger wages than most other clubs are prepared to pay. You can’t keep buying up new players unless you are Chelsea and can afford to pay 80% of the wages for a shitload of your players who are out on loan and still on your payroll. Any sane PL club must take this into account when deciding on buying and selling players, and they… Read more »
I am excited about our squad depth ….. Looking forward to more exciting victories ….. Good time to be a gooner… Being handsome is another requirement to being signed by arsenal…. Gabby?
In his interview, Lucas said Wenger had already been in contact from the start of the transfer window. Added to the comments from Ballague about our pursuit of Lacazette, it’s clear that Lucas was somewhere in our ranked list of priorities and that we had a plan in place.
To be honest, I’m a bit surprised Valencia sold Alcacer though. I thought our purchase fixed their FFP problems?
They got Munir + 30million
COYG!
Its worth trying. welcome Lucas
A bit of a silly one but is it only me who thinks Lucas looks like a young Steve bould??
I’m excited about seeing Perez in action, and think from the limited amount I’ve seen of him that he could fit our system really well.
However, it does seem a little disingenuous of Wenger to say he had hesitations in signing him, given a) we left it so late and b) reportedly we were offered him by Deportivo earlier in the summer and turned him down.
I appreciate he’s obviously not going to come out and say “well, he wasn’t really our first choice” etc. but why mention he had no hesitations at all.
The quote is, “I didn’t have many hesitations.” Not sure how to go from that to, “he had no hesitations at all.”
Aaahhh can you smell that? Positivity! 🙂
I don’t think this move is a gamble. Lucas is really good from what I saw and from many Deportivo fans’ opinion. He shows a lot of passion which we were lacking recently. I’m sure this move will be really good for us.
HSB (Handsome Spanish Bloke)!!
If you read his first Arsenal interview he was asked when did you first hear about Arsenal’s interest and he said ” from my agent when the transfer window opened ” hardly a panic buy
You do have to think why we didn’t buy him as soon as Vardy chickened out of coming to us though if that was the case. Not like the price was too prohibitive and we may have 1-3 more points already if he hit the ground running like he did for Depor.
Because maybe he wasn’t the only one Arsenal considered after Vardy?
As to getting him early, there was no lack for goals in the opener. The problem was the injuries/absence of the experienced central defenders. Once that first game was lost, one cannot imagine Arsenal will risk starting the season with two L’s.
Kolsciellny was the difference at the back.but we still have mustafi coming after international.we hope it goes well from here.all hope is not lost.is a league of 38games just played only 3.we will bounce back i am sure.up the gunners.
I’m excited too about Lucas. If we get 12 goals contribution a season, personally, it is a huge success story.
Granit Xhaka – £30m
Takuma Asano – £3m
Rob Holding – £2.5m
Lucas Perez – £17m
Shkodran Mustafi – £35m
And Mohamed Elneny – £5m in January.
£92.5m for the calendar year.
But the manager doesn’t spend, right? 😉
We’ve already seen glimpses of value from Elneny, Xhaka and Holding. I reckon we’d look back on this summer with a greater appreciation of the incoming players and the boss’ acumen both in terms of football and finance.
Just hope this is not the Sanogo kind of gamble. I also remember Wenger saying we were to be surprised by Sanogo. Somehow I have the feeling this time it won’t go the same way.
Wenger doesn’t gamble like plonkers who pay the pokies. He’s talking about the fact that every new player is a gamble. Will they settle? Will they adapt? Will they stay fit? Will they cope without a Christmas break? Will they get homesick? Will their WAG get homesick and talk them into wanting to leave? Will they have the brains to play in our system? Will they have a messy divorce and want to flee the country? Will they think they’ve made it in their career and stop trying hard enough? Were they only good last season because of the players… Read more »