Arsene Wenger has expanded a bit on the potential arrivals of Lucas Perez and Shkodran Mustafi. The two are expected to be officially announced as Arsenal players over the weekend, and will add depth to key positions.
Perez has had a journeyman career for the most part, showing flashes of brilliance at times, but until his 17 goal and 10 assist season for Deportiva la Coruña last season hadn’t done it consistently.
Having pursued Jamie Vardy off the back of his outstanding season for Leicester, there are shades of that in Perez, with Wenger perhaps hoping he’ll have that extra hunger and desire that comes from not having it all too early.
“Yes, I like that one,” he said. “He is a late developer, he played in a different position.
“He moved centrally in a successful way. I think he has good link-up qualities, good finishing qualities.”
And on Mustafi, he said, “I think he’s a good signing but time will tell. He had two years at Everton, he went to Italy, then Spain.
“But, you know, 19 is a difficult age to play centre-half in the Premier League. He was Valencia’s captain last season and, if we get it done, we’ll have achieved what we wanted.”
The 24 year old will become the club’s most expensive ever defender when his signing is completed, with the fee believed be over £30m plus add-ons.
Awesome!! Can’t wait to see them in action
Ditto.
Nice name.
did someone say party?
Ant party!
I am coming for your souls
I feel so small 🙁
The time has come for you to pay us
Christ this escalated quickly!
I can’t wait to see them on arsenal.com!
Nice volley. Now if he can just do that 28-35 times this year please…
What a goal! He’s got some left foot there! I would say do that 28-35 times against Sp?rs!
From 99% to 99.99% certainty…We have waited a long time, an extra day won’t kill us. They are probably waiting for us to beat Watford before announcing them signings. Loads of joy imminent.
I beg to differ
“Yes, I like that one.”
????
As I follow la Liga I already knew him and think he’s actually quite good, even better than Campbell. He’s scored many goals for a club like Deportivo who have struggled in the past few seasons, scoring against big teams also.
On a different note some good news, the new Spanish coach won’t call Bellerin nor Cazorla for the Spain match so we are avoiding some injuries there!
Think we’ve been looking for a player who runs beyond (as Vardy does) and the talk of Vardy “not suiting our style” was overlooking the fact that we perhaps wanted to be able to counter attack better than we currently do and also having a player who runs beyond automatically stretches the game and gives our midfield more room. Perez seems to be a similar player. So the move looks a positive one.
But with all transfers be they great or small, only time will tell who is worth it and who isn’t.
We have a player who can run beyond in Walcott. But we need a player who can do that, dribble past players too, and get involved in the game more consistently.
I’m pretty certain Alexis does that at any opportunity as well…
?!! As soon as I see those two officially announced, I will allow myself to get excited for this season (although I am struggling to pretend I’m not excited already).
I think we just bought the player Theo was supposed to be.
He doesn’t sound very convinced about the pair.Must have signed them under intense diuress.
I think this is worth a read…Welcome Lucas Perez
https://moarfootball.com/2016/08/25/a-deportivo-la-coruna-fan-on-lucas-perez/
That was a great article and that last video is exactly what we’re crying for as of late. Lucas is a player with lots of passion and grit! I am looking forward to it! #COYG!!!
I’ve only seen the YouTube highlights but he reminds me a bit of Henry. The way he cuts in from the channels, likes to run at goal and good finishing. Can’t wait to see him in action.
C’mon. He’ll be better than Henry.
I am too!
No negative posts today please gents. Lets enjoy the fact we have a quality defender coming in and a decent striker to give the gunners an alternative up front.
Needed to beef up attack and defence…. I would say both boxes ticked Arsene… well done.
But why didn’t we sign Lacazette? For an extra 30 mil and… Only joking, I’m glad we’ve actually got some competition up front now. 17 goals for an average team in La Liga is nothing to be scoffed at. As he is a late bloomer, they’ll be a lot of hunger and ambition to do well for our club.
Well, the overall point still stands, why leave it so late? We’re three games into the season by the time they will be playing. But yeah, I get where you’re coming from, can’t wait to see them in action.
We are into third game? Please for God’s sake…we have so many many more games to go. League, CL, FA Cup, League Cup. 2 gone…but 50 more to go. Please fans…
I suspect there were 2 or 3 targets chased earlier in the window and they didnt come off. Thus this pair now so late in the window. Cant buy 4 defenders on day 1!
Welbeck will really feel LANS. Great depth all around. If Holding keeps this up, he’ll be hard to drop!
Mr Wenger, forgive me I doubted and thought you lost the plot this summer when in fact you played against ridiculous market.l and executed the plan perfectly. There are not many things I want so much as to witness Wenger’s success. Love the man.
I’d think if we do bring Perez and mustafi in, it can be seen as great boost to the character on the pitch. Xhaka has been a captain and doesn’t mind having a go at other players around him if they don’t perform up to the mark. Same goes for mustafi. Club captain and I’m sure there are qualities that he could bring onto the pitch that the current side lacks. Being vocal hasn’t been something that the team has showed very often on the pitch. Perez seems like he could get a word or two into Theo’s ears about… Read more »
Imagine a shock James Rodriguez signing! Him and Sanchez on opposite flanks wow
But alas, I’m asking for too much
Can’t wait to see our new signings in action. And excited to see how Kos Mustafi pair turns out to be
Big rumours that Arsenal tried to get Griezmann, at huge price, but he wants to stay in Spain. I know most people won’t believe the first part, but it sounds plausible–on both ends–to me.
Perez obviously wasn’t the signing Wenger wanted early in the Summer, but to his credit he found someone that seems to be able to fit into our lineup as a replacement at times and compliment to Giroud without the expectation to start every match so Wenger is able to reward those that are playing well which is always what is needed to keep a squad strong. Really wish the Greizman deal would have worked out even at that fee, but most importantly we have some cover for Giroud (and who knows maybe a better option than Giroud) and some depth… Read more »
We should be better prepared, I stand by that. If you can’t get your Plan A, you have to have your Plan B ready to go. The buisness we’ve done is still the bare minimum that was needed, not more not less. Our preparation and strategic buisness still seems like a big mess, but I’m happy we’ve got these two done.
What the fuck is your striker doing standing at the halfway line during a corner?
Training ground move…
I told him to stand there. To wind you up.
And why the fuck did the corner taker pass it to him!! Bloody idiots the pair of them! Eh?
It’ll be interesting to see where Wenger plays him, I don’t think we will ever play with the traditional two up front (4-4-2), maybe in a 4-3-3 with Giroud in the middle, Sanchez on the left and Perez on the right?
I know he’s a striker but surely we won’t just play him when Giroud is ‘rested’ or going through one of his bad patches, and what about Theo?, is it curtains?
Nicely played by Wenger, keep the signings so close to the end of the window such that we’re all so happy anyone at all has been brought in. Very pleased with the Mustafi signing, Perez I’m less certain about but will judge him and Wenger after I see him play. Unfortunately Man U and City have done better business though, so that’s the title out of reach still but oh well, not like we were ever realistically hoping for it.
I have my doubts about City and United doing better business this year. City have made many investments for the future, so that is arguably very good business, but it doesn’t lead to a title this year. Aside from Nolito, Pep is relying on City’s established team to get the job done at the moment, and they have yet to play a team with much of an attack, and that backline or whatever you want to call it he is lining up will be swiss cheese. Stones is another remarkably overrated English product; he’s a good defender, and he’ll develop… Read more »
I’m not being funny but hate it when people talk absolute bollocks. Mkhitaryan is only looking for a pay day but I guess Xhaka is a lifelong Arsenal fan and plays for free?
And as for thinking that Zlatan’s a poor signing just kind of shows there’s no point reading your posts. Zlatan will win them the league.
It would be an honour if you stopped reading them, based on your reply.
Make no mistake Xhaka and Mustafi are very good signings who I expect to improve our starting X1. I won’t comment on Perez until I’ve actually seen him kick a ball. YouTube scouts already calling him the new Eduardo is a bit embarrassing.
With Mustafi and Koscielny as our first choice CB partnership, it should allow Mertesacker to concentrate on his full-time role as Arsenal captain as he follows in the footsteps of Arteta.
We don’t need Mahrez we have Perez!
Perez must have been the third or the fourth back option, Wenger had in mind for the striker position. That is why it took him the entire summer to sign him. As for Mustafi he was reluctant in the first place to spend so much money for a defender. He was maybe waiting to see if he could save up that money to sign an expensive striker. Who knows maybe even Greizmann. You have got to give the man a lot of credit. He has worked his ass off against all the odds in this crazy transfer market and has… Read more »
No, he has done the bare minimum to have a competitive squad. And he left it late, three games in to the seasson until they can play for us. That’s still disastrous management. I’m not prepared to let him off the hook that easily. We could still use a winger and Walcott is still on our books.
Luckily, the like of you are still quite a small percentage. Hope it stays that way.
Might be true, but you know what? We finally got some new blood in let’s see what they can do
Absolutely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8MOeWnuRao
The boss knows and does accordingly…wasn’t a doubt
Did anyone read the comments from wenger on ‘freedom’ in today’s society, he was principally applying this to management, however also extended the analysis to life in general. In summary, super fast media takes our freedoms rather than enhances it, as we are all subject to instant judgement. Truly exceptional analysis. Social media makes everyone subject to instant shallow analysis, whether as a manager on Arseblog, a mother on Facebook or a teenager on Snapchat. The facility to comment and judge in an instant and for those judgements to be validated in a similar manner leads to a dominant weight… Read more »
What? Bollocks, Wenger’s a cunt. Everyone knows that. Stand up if you hate…
Probably gone for a joke here, but you missed the mark
Fuck off.
The squad looks complete now. No complaints in any department. Thank you Mr. Wenger 🙂
Just please don’t try to force fit Ramsey when he comes back.
A couple of weeks back i laid into Wenger and the board big time in this very site. I have to say now that if we pulled these two off it doesn’t look too bad a window. Still I will stress that not having a ‘team’ ready for you first game isn’t acceptable but will forgive that for the maddness that is the english transfer window. I still hold on to the fact that the board truely dump all responsiblity on Wenger and that isn’t right, we need the board to pull their finger out and say right Arsene give… Read more »
Never in doubt.
…except by certain segments of fan base.
Usual hysteria bordering on the comic really.
Wenger has always done well in market. he has made mistakes no doubt but it is generally forgotten that he pays very low compared to others in market for equivalent and therefore those mistakes do not weigh against our bottom line. It affords us ability to grow the finances and attracted investment into the stadium. Where he has spent for premium (starting really with Santi), he has done well. Ozil, Alexis and Granit have been excellent buys comparative to how much others would have paid for them. Remember, there is a lot of ground work gone unnoticed, any of these… Read more »
With regards our purchases this summer : 1) Granit. Media are shy to mention him for some reason. One of the best DMs emerging with an excellent Euro performance (bar penalty). and at 30-35m a fantastic price done early. We saw as he is settling in its not just the defensive competition for Coquelin he is providing the team but also his passing from deep which replicates what Santi gives us (that we sadly missed last season). Wenger clearly wants a quicker transition into attack to catch defenses before they can fully reorganise. 2) Mustafi – World cup/Euro experienced and… Read more »
What ever way you look at it it’s a lot of wonga. I just pray these new guys and the older guard perform and we smash the mugs that have been winning it all over the last ten or so yrs COYG!