The agent of Lucas Perez says that the striker would be open to a move to Lazio because they’re a team he’s always liked.
The 29 year old will return to Arsenal this summer – unless a deal is done before then – following a disappointing loan spell at his hometown club Deportivo la Coruna.
He managed just 8 goals in a campaign which saw the Galician side relegated from La Liga, and he was the target of fan anger despite previously being viewed as a hero because of his boyhood support.
Speaking to a Lazio fan-site Rodrigo Fernandez said, “Lazio asked for him last year, but nothing came of it.
“Lucas has always liked Lazio and the city of Rome, plus his great friend, Luis Alberto, plays for them.
“He still has two years left on his contract with Arsenal, so we need to talk to them first.
“As for Lucas, he likes the idea of playing for Lazio, but it’s still too early to talk about it.”
Arsenal paid almost £18m for the striker in the summer of 2016, and although they got some money from Depor in the shape of a loan fee, we’re unlikely to recoup anything near what we paid if we do sell him this summer.
He always looked a decent enough player who didn’t get as many chances as he should have, but this will have to go down as one of the big transfer failures of recent years.
In the scheme of things, he didn’t cost us too, too much. And I’m not sure that any fan ever had high expectations of him either. Feels like signing him was a makeshift choice, but hopefully with Sven here now, we will be making less decisions like this.
Good luck. Sven is making poor decisions for us. 1) Why buy Aubameyang in January when it could have been done in the summer. Even if so, Giroud should have been kept on account Aubameyang was cup tied and we would likely need europa back into CL) 2) Mhkiatrayan for Alexis, IMO we should have sold Alexis to City but the main issue was it distracted us from a real need to add out wide. 3) Mavropanos. Sure this player may eventually be great for us but we already had Holding whom attracted similar applause from usual simplistic fans and… Read more »
Get your head out of your arse. Auba would’ve gone somewhere else, we didn’t have a choice on the Sanchez deal and would’ve been left with a paltry sum to buy no wide players had he gone to city and buying a talented youngster for a small fee isn’t something to be lambasted for. Buying a striker/winger and not playing him is literally a waste of money.
Hey, now that Wenger is gone, people need something to moan about, so let him have his rant.
Aubameyang acquisition was to prove ozil we mean business to make him sign, i think the transfer fee/wages was from the reserves to buy alexis’ replacement in this summer. Also, he is better than the aging giroud in my opinion. Mkhitaryan for alexis was an inssurance in case ozil was going in the summer aswell as being competition. Also mhki is class so i like this transfer, win win. Mavropanos is a purchase for the future, you can’t complain about not getting an excellent prostect while he was on the cheap and then complain when we don’t, see wenger’s almost… Read more »
“usual simplistic fans”
You don’t have to be such a condescending prick.
I think that’s the crux of it. There are some decent points in there, but they’re written as if they’re facts and that anyone who disagrees is a pleb. Another way to look at the transfers is that if Sven had’ve been around earlier we might’ve got Aubameyang instead of Lacazette and would not have to have sold Giroud. Another way to look at it is that we might have signed Mkhitaryan when we wanted to come originally. He could’ve been playing with Alexis or if we needed to sell Alexis to get him we could’ve had an extra £30m… Read more »
Also Campbell has been on our books for almost a decade, work permit trouble kept him from london Colney for a few years.
Such a weird situation. I wish him luck if he goes. Still would probably keep him around myself, but then I liked Joel Campbell too, so what do I know?
Lucas who?
Perez
The FA Cup match at St. Mary’s where Lucas and Welbz destroyed Southampton, I felt he’d become a solid player for us. Maybe Arteta brings him back and turns his arsenal career around
This. Exactly this.
(Seems some supporters have very short memories. And if Arsenal isn’t connected to flavor-of-the-month guy, then we’re shit and its somebody’s fault.)
Lucas is a top quality footballer. Bring him back. Arsenal need to score more goals. He’s a good finisher and good at link up play. And we already have him.
Embarrassingly, I’d forgotten he was still an Arsenal player. Thought he got short shrift at the club and looked pretty good when given the chance to play. That said, it was never clear to me why bought him in the first place if Wenger was so obviously not convinced by him.
The bigger question is why he was not convinced by Perez slamming in a goal every sub, or even one game where he had a hat trick.
Something about Perez made a lot of sense–Giroud-like movement and clinical finishing, but it was more of an equivalent exchange rather than an improvement. Lacazette is better at everything than Perez has in his toolkit.
Weird choice, but I don’t see it as Perez being snubbed, but rather just not being able to deliver enough to warrant inclusion over Giroud at that time.
I never got the impression that Wenger trusted him or was going to be won over – right from the very beginning. It seemed like a bit of a panic/PR buy that he subsequently resented.
Which is kinda mental when you think about it, since Wenger authorized the outlay of nearly 20 million pounds for him. Remember, this was at a time when Wenger held all the power in terms of transfers and whatnot. And I recall another press conference where Wenger specifically said that he liked Lucas and thought he had a lot to offer the squad. To then ignore him and refuse to give him a shot when Lucas had done everything in his power to get more opportunities (with that purple patch of goals he had in the beginning of winter that… Read more »
It wasn’t the year we lost to Leicester. We bought him in the same window as we tried to sign Vardy (i.e just after Leicester’s title win), probably because he fit some of the same characteristics (aggressive runner and good finisher).
If he was so good, why didn’t he do better at Deportivo?
If you had regularly watched them this season then you probably would not have asked that question. Blaming Lucas is a bit unfair; if you are given crab sticks it is difficult to make paella.
Its insurance. Also certain other strikers say Lacazette or Aubameyang may not have been ready to be plucked. Depends on whether there are other offers for them. We have to remember there are 7 or 8 clubs who have better allure and can spend more than us. We need to bide time and wait for the right opportunity. In this regard Mslintat’s links to Aubameynag and Dortmund does us good but timing is also critical. I feel we should have brought Aubameyang in this summer with some issues ironed out in January, have him stay to finish the season with… Read more »
FOR THE LAST TIME, SANT, WE WERE NOT BUYING F****** MAHREZ!!!! We would have had to pay Leicester freaking 90-100+ million pounds for him in January (when we bought Auba). Not this 40-50 million pound nonsense you kept harping on about! Plus, Mahrez wanted to leave TO CITY. He wasn’t looking to come to us. He would not have joined us even if we’d paid Leicester the sum they were looking for! We know you don’t like Sven and Raul. You’ve made that clear more than enough times. But you have to give up the Mahrez ghost already. It wasn’t… Read more »
Bang on comment there. Totally agree.
Mahrez had one – ONE – good season. He was flavor of the month and now he’s just an overpriced locker room cancer.
First off please keep it succinct, you do drag on a bit.
Second, Auba has scored 10 in 14 plus a sand full of assists. Would giroud have got us that? Just be greatful we have a world class attacker at our disposal and not a fair weather player like Mahrez.
And the funny thing is, sant still thinks we could have gotten Mahrez if only we’d just ponied up the 40-50 million he thinks it would have cost!
Despite the fact that Leicester weren’t giving him up for anything short of 90-100 million.
Despite the fact that Mahrez clearly wanted to go to City, instead of coming here.
But no, sant still thinks Sven and Raul are idiots for not spending 40-50 million to bring Mahrez to the club in January.
LOL.
Did Debuchy and Perez send best wishes to Wenger ? I would be surprised if they did.
Wow, that’s a blast from the past! Who next Campbell 🙂
BOTH decent but really brought in as insurance policies.
Campbell will feature for Costa Rica this summer. Maybe we will see some heroics from him.
Campbell was a youth prospect with permit issues, he was ‘brought in’ years ago……
I have no beef with Campbell. As a squad player you can do much much worse
I’d love to read Lewis Ambrose’s message to Lazio fans about this potential transfer.
Meanwhile, we can all enjoy the europa league final today with Athletico and Simeone.
We could have kept Giroud but we elected to push him out and instead bring in a cup tied player, rely on Lacazette whom apparently some prefer to call “world class”.
In a World Cup year Giroud wanted playing time. He didn’t think he’d get it here. Wenger, offering a French gentleman’s favor, let him go where he would play and stay in the World Cup window. He wanted Aubameyang, that was the opportunity. If we’d sat on it and missed out it’d be Damned If You Don’t. What transpired before that was the past and may have been much more complicated. Sven and Raul weren’t on board yet last summer to get it done and waiting for this summer would’ve been foolish. With several clubs looking for strikers we surely… Read more »
I am a big fan of Giroud who, besides his obvious heading and hold-up ability, is also terrific with his feet (watch the goal he scored for Chelsea recently), and not quite as slow as people say. That said, I cannot imagine any club in the world that would not prefer Aubameyang, a genuine world-class player.
Giroud sat on bench initially at Chelski but proved himself to be a better player than Morata and became first choice. Good luck to him Saturday evening.
Some Arsenal fans were regularly saying on this board that Giroud wasn’t good enough for us – how we could have used him at the end of the season!
Maybe a new manager would see the benefits of Perez on the squad too? £18m seems a very expensive “insurance policy” if you don’t claim when things go wrong.
Well our problem was more in defence. Giroud or no Giroud if we defend like school kids we get battered
The most sensible thing said here on this subject
I like Olli too, wish we could have kept them all. But he wanted to go, and so it is. Auba is a great addition to the attack.
He and Campbell should have been given more chances at Arsenal.
Yes. Campbell was working his socks off and putting in better and better performances when he saw the field. But instead of giving him a run in the team, Wenger let him rot on the bench as he kept giving freakin’ Theo Walcott chance after chance to do the square root of f*** all. Lucas was scoring just about every time he came into a match, and giving effort and hustle whenever he saw the pitch. Yet Wenger refused to give him a game in the winter two years ago, even as Giroud was so out of form he didn’t… Read more »
So true. You articulated my thoughts exactly!
100% agree
I’d bite your hand off to play for ANY Serie A side, let alone Champions League qualifying Lazio, if I’d just been relegated and had a poor season in La Liga too…
Wengers recent transfer history has been a disaster and is the reason we are where we are…..
Lucas perez…… xhaka…… Mustafi………thats the best part of £100 million down the drain……..
Aubameyang was Svens signing by the way ….which is why I trust this future recruitment set up much more than Wenger’s recruitment over the past few years.
I think Auba is a player anyone wanted and y unless you know for sure, because you were involved, then you can’t say for certain it was Svens signing. I think Wenger has left this squad in a pretty good shape, add a defender, holding mid n goal keeper I think we’re good to go
G Knight sounds like a Sven signing himself.
I always felt Lucas was never given a fair shake here. Despite the fact that it felt like he was finding the net just about every time he came into a match. But for whatever reason, Wenger never gave him a real chance. Instead, Wenger kept going back to the Theo Walcott/Danny Welbeck well that had long since run dry. If he’d given Lucas more of a run two years ago (when Lucas was doing everything he could to convince Wenger to give him a shot), he might have been a useful piece then and now. But he didn’t, and… Read more »
LANSLOLZZZZZ
Seriously though I quite like him. I like me a player who tries his balls off and likes getting stuck in. Why didn’t he make the grade? Too slow?
Why not bring him back? Surely he can’t be worse than Iwobi, right?
Thank You Lucas , Sorry Lucas , All the best Lucas ?
As much as I like Welbeck and acknowledge his uses, wouldn’t Perez be a better third striker to have? I understand it’s never going to happen, too much history and the rest, but to me it would make sense to offload Welbeck and bring in Perez.
Welbeck is taller, stronger, has more pace, and is a very good defender. Much better choice as a squad player.
And younger.
Yes to both of you but Welbeck lacks goals and when/if one or both of our other strikers are injured then Perez would be a much better back up than Welbeck.
They wouldn’t be in the squad as strikers, though, they’d be in the squad as wide players who could fill in up front if and when required. Customarily third choice players in a position tend to be youngsters (like Macey for the GK position) so it’s technically Eddie who’d be third choice striker.
I really liked Perez. Great movement, link-up play and a good finisher inside the box. Same level as Giroud and Lacazette. Not at Aubameyang’s level though. Perez didn’t get the chance his performances deserved.
Welbz played ok in the last few games of the season but has a heavy first touch and is a poor finisher. He should focus on being a left winger, using his athleticism to bomb up and down the wing, doing that thing Arsenal players hate, TRACKING BACK. I think this will be how Southgate uses him in the summer.
We need a left footed wide-attacker. Maybe Arteta can sweeten him up.
On paper his stats were compelling. But he didn’t fit into the tactics that Wenger wanted.
Whether Wenger should have adjusted the tactics to suit one individual player is a moot point now that he has left.
Wonder why we signed him.
Similar story with Gabriel and Xhaka.