Arsenal have signed Alexandre Lacazette from Lyon on a five-year deal for a club-record fee €53 million rising to €60 million with add-ons.
The France international, 26, leaves his hometown club after 14 years having scored 129 goals in 275 appearances across all competitions. Last season he hit 28 goals in Ligue 1, the best total for a French player since Jean-Pierre Papin in 1991.
The Gunners used the club’s Twitter feed to tease the player’s arrival at the training ground.
You’ll never guess who… ? pic.twitter.com/4Owx2Bg17i
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) July 5, 2017
They then confirmed the deal via Instagram with a punny hashtag #lacanewsigning
Lacazette had previously agreed terms with Atletico Madrid only for the move to collapse when the Spanish side were hit with a temporary transfer ban.
Arsene Wenger said of his new boy: “We are very happy to have Alexandre join our group. He has shown over a number of years that he can score goals and that he is a very efficient finisher.
“As well, he has very interesting technical qualities and a strong character. So he is a guy who is a great addition for us, and someone who will help us challenge at the top level this season.”
It remains to be seen whether Lacazette, who is the Gunners’ second signing of the summer after Sead Kolasinac, is a replacement for compatriot Olivier Giroud who has been heavily linked with a move away from the Emirates this summer.
The club have confirmed that the new signing will be on the plane for the tour to Australia and China.
Welcome to Arsenal Alex, we hope you brought your scoring boots with you…
Welcome aboard!
I’ve got to give it to the club for the hashtag. #lacanewsigning Wonder if they will use it when he is 31, out for 3 weeks (i.e. 6 months), we are desperate for a new striker and he comes back.
But he’s only got one leg…
It would have cost an extra 20m to get both
At least it’s his right leg
How long did you have this article ready to be published? 🙂
Just used the Suarez / Higuain template
Waiting for you to use the Draxler template next
Or the Mahrez template? For Mahrez.
there’s the Reus template for that.
Glad you never got to use the ‘Terry joins as squad cover for a season’ template.
Have there ever been more up votes (373 as of this posting) for any comment?
542 now
Cool
LacaNewSigning!
Haha the Arsenal social media chaps have a good sense of humour!
Wasn’t their line, using ‘laca’ like ‘like a’ just saying
They robbed from an Arsenal fans tweet! Down vote that bitches!
Bitches
They stole it from here
Welcome!
Good stuff! Solid signing if you ask me. Now for a few more please 🙂
That could be anyone with a beard.
I was waiting to see the camera cut to that electric Eboue smile
so how many Alex’s have we got at the Arsenal no, eh?!
They are the new Emmanuels
The real question is how many will we have September 1.
A good player no doubt but this transfer window can’t be evaluated until we see our squad first game of the season.
Were Alexis to go, we’d need more than just Lacazette. But it’s a start.
I hope aulas shuts up now.
Happy with that. Can we have some more please.
Doubtful, but at least we won’t have listen to him any more
Fun fact: French pronunciation dictates that is name is pronounced the same as “Hola”.
…use this information wisely.
Welcome to The Arsenal, Monsieur Cassette!
Arsenal fans can rest now. Till the next rumour…..
To think his wages are now the highest at the club…..by a long way.
Sanchez and Ozil getting twitchy?
How much will he earn? I couldnt find the wages anywhere…
John Cross reports 200k/wk.
Someone reported 150k/wk. Is that really the highest?
Sanchez 140k/week, but Arsenal offers him 280k right now
Well, finally the striker we all waiting for.
Man, i hope Sanchez stay, Sanchez + Laca + Ozil + Lemar/Mahrez, i can have confidence we can win the league now.
Don’t forget Lehmanns, i hope the guy can fix our mentality problem.
Not sure we want Lehmann dealing with mental side of things
We could do with a little more crazy in the ranks right now!
If Sanchez leaves, waww.. it’s LMAO !
Where the f@ck did that come from?
Giroud got the better beard. I will take lacas goals though.
As good a birthday present I could have asked for!
COYG!
Happy birthday!
Me too!
Woop Woop!
Could this summer be different? Both in wrapping up signings early and the level or quality we sign?
Quick, composed finisher, intelligent and a bit of a fighter. So he has scored more goals in last three seasons than anyone else in France. But they say, he scored 10 penalties last season. When you take away penalties from the equation it puts his league minutes per goals higher than Giroud last season. The thing is he won a lot of the penalties and he doesn’t seem to miss them! Also good penalty takers and set piece specialist (Lemar please) should be welcome into our squad as we have a serious lack of both. Just hope he gets in… Read more »
I’d like to see the play involving all 10 PKs. How was he involved? Buildup? Created the contact? There’s something going to be said for getting 10 freebees. If he helps generate those PKs, that has quite a bit of value as well.
Don’t think he got all 10 but counted at least 4 when he was chopped down in the box going past a defender.
He has got great acceleration, real burst of pace over first few yards
which defenders find difficult to deal with.
Exactly. Remember the recent season where Arsenal had all of about 5 pks called in their favor?
I would guess that if we saw stats on pks/team/season, and league wide conversion rates on those PKs, any worry about a guy who generates and scores from the spot would be fairly moot.
Ronaldo gets alot of penalties too, remember?
I’m not too worried about 10 penalties, because his tally when you take them away is still 27 last season.
Hi.
I hope you score a fuck load of goals.
Bye.
Hoorah for Zoidbrg, and us fans of course. Genuinely excited to see him play in the famous red and white. Onwards and upwards 🙂
Hopefully will be the clinical finisher we’ve been missing these past few years since Judas left
COYG
We are getting our business done early!!!!
2 of the 3/4 signings are already done and pre-season matches haven’t even started.
<3 <3 <3 <3
Lets hope this is the start of something special for us all 🙂
Can see why the delay in announcing this now. Took AFC all day to produce the shite video and crap sound track.
Actually, the delay was due to French bourse rules, Lyon is a listed company so announcement had to wait until end of trading.
Welcome to The Arsenal, Alexandre.
He has a pretty decent chant already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35uHxJyzGcE
Great chant! Will enjoy watching our fans struggle to pronounce the end of AlexanDRE in that guttural, throaty French pattoire
Not a bad plan B, clearly couldnt get mbappe then
FFS…..
Bang them in and we will love you forever
That’s what all women say!
What makes me excited and happy is the fact that they have done this early which suggests he was one of their top targets. Look forward to many of his goals
Boom Xhaka Laca 😉
“Ram Xhaka Laca”
Has anyone seen the hashtag we’re using for this signing. The club have become self-aware…
#LacaNewSigning
Commented before I read the article. My bad
Am currently in South Africa where Laca (sp Lekka) means great, excellent etc
We can finally look forward to him getting on the end of a beautiful Xhaka pass:
Xhaka….Laca….boom!
Good signing now let’s add a few more
GET IN THERE!
I like it me.
Now i can bench walcott on fifa 🙂 LacaGoodsigning!
If he plays with Iwobi, the Ox, and Sanchez, we can have the triple-A–the all-Alex attack.
That would be quadruple, I believe.
The A-Men.
“X-Men”
Finally, we’ll have a speedy striker leading the line!
me: yeah but how will we know if he’s actually any good?
arsenal youtube channel: *posts video of Lacazette doing five keepie-uppies and an around the world*
We’ll at least were not #lacinewsignings
LANS
Lacazette Boost
Front 4 of Lacazette, Iwobi, Oxlade-chamberlain and Sanchez now possible. 4/11 of the way to my dream team
Shame it on as wasted on Nasri but….
La la, la la, la la la laaa. Alex Lacazette! ALEX Lacazette!!
Welcome!!
Hope we end up having to pay those add-on fees as well!!
Excellent addition. Thus far we’ve added well. Kolasinac for free, now a very consistent scorer in ligue one over 4 seasons and one who also creates. He’s to me like a quasi-striker, someone who can play up top but also offer utility out wide, someone like a Walcott with nuance. Which is exactly what we need to improve. IMO though this moves is predicated with the view that Alexis (not Giroud as erroneously assumed by so many) may be leaving. I feel we will need one more addition in wide area to truly improve rather than merely replace. Mahrez would… Read more »
Now we need to sign La Compact Dizc, La Vinyl and La MP3
…La Losslesse Formatte,
The importance of being Alex by Arsene Wenger
Welcome! Finally a clinical finisher.