Alex Lacazette says former club Lyon is one of a number of clubs who’ve been in touch about signing him should he become a free agent in the summer.
While that’s no secret – president Jean-Michel Aulas said as much in February – it sounds like the striker will only be tempted by a return to his hometown club if they secure European football.
Knocked out of the Europa League by West Ham and currently sitting eighth in the table, that’s by no means a foregone conclusion.
Un retour du "gang des Lyonnais" à l'OL ? 🔙@LacazetteAlex n'est pas contre… Mais la qualification européenne pèsera dans la balance 👀
🎙️ @raphaeldome pic.twitter.com/wxTzppGKZl
— Canal Football Club (@CanalFootClub) April 17, 2022
“I am in discussion with a lot of clubs,” said Lacazette during an appearance on Canal Football Club on Sunday.
“I have never cut ties with Lyon since I left. I try to return to the club once or twice a year to see the medical staff again because we are really close. They know that I am free [in the summer], they made enquiries.
He added: “I want to play in Europe, it’s been a long time since I played in the Champions League too, so I miss it. Nothing is impossible in life but it’s a little more complicated [for Lyon without Europe].”
Lacazette joined Arsenal from Lyon in 2018 for £46.5 million and is now into the final months of the five-year contract he signed.
Mikel Arteta is thought to want to offer the 30-year-old a new short-term deal but it seems increasingly likely that he’ll see out the final years of his career elsewhere.
The striker, who has just six goals in 31 appearances to his name this season, missed Saturday’s defeat to Southampton after testing positive and is facing a race against time to be involved in Wednesday’s trip to Chelsea.
Is there a sound of crickets emoji?
🦗
To think of we just put out faith in lokonga and Balogun at the start of the season and backed and played them the whole way through, how much worse would we actually be? Maybe a place or two…maybe!? And then going forward we’d have another two ready young players and we’d be much better positioning for next season. Instead here we are debating whether xhaka and Laca are crappa…
‘I have never cut ties with Lyon since I left.’
Yeah, I mean, probably not great admitting that when you cant hit a fucking barn door with a beach ball at the moment or really ever.
Been a pretty awful signing for the transfer fee all things considered.
20+ goals in three consecutive seasons for Lyon. Scored within two minutes of his PL debut. Healthy goals+assist numbers until this season, despite never being first choice. The guy’s forgotten more about goal-scoring than radar-chart tweeters know.
Pity that two decent managers couldn’t solve the “good problem” of having two world-class strikers. Inexplicable that current manager still believes citing xG = coaching attack.
I am sorry, Lacazette has been an awful signing for what we paid for him.
14, 13, 10, 13, 4 goals (Inc 7 penalties) in his PL seasons aren’t awful, but are very far from what I’d expected from a near 50m quid signing. Thanks Laca but enjoy your twilight days in Lyon.
And this is our current capitan. Our previous capitan was shipped to Barcelona for free, and the one before that told our fans to fk off. These our the leaders our club and management have/had selected to be the leaders. No wonder this club is going down hill. Bunch of wankers in the boardroom and clueless rookie as our manager. The future looks bright?
The arrogance of the man! How can he make eyes at ‘CL clubs’ when he hasn’t even had a shot on target for a month? An absolute kick in the teeth to the fans of the club that currently employs him.
See ya! Watching Bruno G on MOTD is making me sad …. 😢
Seems we have suggested way less fee for him compared to Newcastle.
What a surprise ! 🙄
😁
Newcastle are in a unique situation. They can pay high transfer fees and offer big wages–and even long-term contracts–for short-term payoffs without worrying if they are overpaying or if they will be stuck with players later. For almost anyone else, this is a gamble, but not when you are the richest club in the world and your owner simply does not care about losing a few hundred million.
BG looking like value for money atm
If we had all that money available to buy Vlahovic who never wanted to come, I don’t understand that we didn’t have the money to get Guimaraes, who would’ve been excellent for us, or those players the spuds bought when we were supposedly after them. We totally fucked up that transfer window.
Sp*rs loaned those two players from Juventus almost solely based on their ties to the club thanks to Paratici, their managing director.
Don’t think we had as much of a chance. Plus, Kulusevski is a right winger, which we certainly didn’t need in january!
Proud of him for taking control of his career TBH.
He’s missed every international tournament since replacing Giroud (who has gone). But he still has time to achieve that — if he moves.
I’ve no doubt that he could still get double figures in any top league including the prem. An arm round the shoulder and simplified duties might just be it.
Wouldn’t be surprised at all if a top manager takes this view and comes in for him.
The only double figures he’s capable of now is to double the size of his waistline.
I’ve definitely thought at times, he doesn’t look after himself well enough. It has annoyingly huge impact on his game [shift foot, quick backlift, give and go]. It’s on the manager to address that, and I thought Wenger especially never gave him more than 70 minutes.
We’re not privy to the details, but I wouldn’t be surprised if struggling mentally was the context for his weight gains.
What I don’t want to do is weight shame. We talk talk talk about clarse a lot.
“If he moves” – heh.
Yep. Ironically, he’d be perfect for Chelsea.
Arsenal fans do this thing where if it’s not working for a player, he must be awful. Hope that stops. It’s salty and insecure.
Especially in the Arteta system. I love Arteta, hope he succeeds. That does not mean that I am blind to the demands his system places on our forwards. There are two kinds of successful managers. One in general chooses adapting to players styles and strengths first, then tactics. The other is style and tactics first, then either mold or find the best players for that system. I am aware this is a generalization of sorts but also reality.
I’d swap Laca for Werner in a heartbeat. Werner to me seems like one of those guys that is just in a bad place at a club, but he’s strong, decent in the air, excellent passer and in build up, and fast. He’s worth the risk IMO. Feels like where ever he ends up he’ll be banging them in again. #Risk/Reward. His overall record is 189 goals, 84 assists in 408 games. If he could be had on the cheap – fking eh! He’s miles better than Laca and actually quite a similar player – just bigger and faster…and better.
That’s an amazing example of someone who could easily explode with a change of environment. Out of the best players to wear the Arsenal shirt, many of them came with something to prove, a remontada to fulfill.
I don’t like what Werner does for Chelsea but I can see what he could be for us. A classic Arsenal goal is one where we move the ball end to end in under 10 seconds. He is perfect for that philosophy.
We call him Alexander Lack of threat these days.
Some people are gonna wait for him to do a players tribune listing all the other horrible things before they understand this. It’s okay.
Alexander-Lacks-Zest?
Well, as much as I am not a believer in MA’s “process”, I think he cannot get to double figures in PL anymore.
Though we can’t feed him too often, he is also weak on turning his few opportunities into goals, let alone creating one for himself.
P.S. I never thought he is a big player tbh.
I never fancied him at Arsenal from the beginning, and gave up a long time ago on him being ‘it’.
I don’t think he can carry the responsibility here. For me, he’s someone who can chip in with important contributions within a team that’s already ticking.
Hence my general comments on his value and potential at this point. He might not necessarily downgrade.
At the end of the day these people are human beings. If he’s going to be called fat every week, then I’m glad he’s getting out of that!
Never fancied him too. Was shocked when we went for him
He never once looked comfortable with the pressure of the job at Arsenal — which is essentially to outperform and outclass more expensively assembled teams.
Giving him seniority on top of that has exacerbated the problem. He’s shrivelled into it. More concerned with looking concerned, than hurting opponents.
He still has things to learn in the game, and a thirst for goal to recapture. I’m betting that top of his criteria list is to be nowhere near the captaincy / leadership group in his next club.
Could be wrong but I always thought he refused to play for France anymore under Deschamps because he only wanted him to sit on the bench at Euro 2016(?)
I heard something similar but he always made himself available. Certainly in 2018, he lost that fight to Giroud fair and square.
He wants to play in the CL or EL and looks like he doesn’t trust the Arsenal process…
Or… crazy thought, he may be aware that his performances haven’t been at a high enough level to guarantee a part in “the arsenal process” beyond this season 🤷♂️
Always frustrating when players demand to play Champions League as if their performances aren’t directly culpable for not.
Not necessarily aimed at Laca.
Yeah.
On his XBox.
I’ll help you pack. Taxi fare to the airport? No problem, son. My pleasure.
Ok bye 👋🏼
Won’t be missed as he’s contributed virtually nothing all season, just another member of the dead wood society that should have been sold/paid off at least a year ago.
His team look up to him, even more they seem to really respect him.
I guess the Premier League doesn’t broadcast in France.
His a Lyon lad so regardless of form, Aulas would re-sign him in a heartbeat on that fact alone
That is how they roll.
Can see easily see him & Benzema having a Dads army vibe there.
It’s actually mad to remember he’s only 30. Feels like such a regression from 2018/19 when we was our player of the season. Can’t fault his effort but he’s just not at the level we wanna be at.
He misses the Champions League? If he’d done his job and scored a few goals we might have got back in it.
Id like to share my thought on some few things n id like to be corrected if am wrong ..first id like to tell laca that his form doesnt merit a ucl football .cuz if he has been scoring we wont be here ..n he mught earn a cobtract to play there..so therefore he is free to go .secondly btw willock n sambi .who is better suited to the league n inform .? We sold him n got lokonja who slips n falls here n there ..we had a chance to sign playas or loan playas in jan arteta believed… Read more »
Anyone knowing Lukaku’s contact number?
Sod that. Lukaku’s another waste of space.
We should be speaking to Haaland, but once again, City are getting their business done quicker than Arsenal. Not that that’s difficult.
We’re as slow off the pitch as we are on it.
Another transfer mistake, £46 million, certainly not by any stretch worth anything like that to the Arsenal. Since about 2012 we have been paying first rate prices for second raters, sad really because the results don’t lie. Our business out of France has been particularly awful, Sanogo, Chamakh, Lacazette, Pepe etc, what goes on.
Gabriel has been good.
Saliba might be too, manager permitting.
1.5 times what we paid for Alexis, that was at least 1.5 times better than Laca.
Alexis was comfortably twice the player Lacazette is to Arsenal.
We are talking about a player who was unplayable at times.
Ramsey, Santi, Ozil, Giroud and Alexis nearly delivered the title in 2016.
But for our crap defence, they would have done so quite comfortably.
Mistake is we buy them over a period of years never all in one summer after Cesc and Van Persie, that’s the proof that the Kroenkes only buy to please the gullible fans. Ozil, Alexis, Laca, Pepe, Partey, White. Our biggest priced signings and on most cases our best player’s of the past 10 years. not once have 2 of them come in together all in different transfer windows. Kroenkes are happy with a top 10 premier League team, the risk isn’t worth the reward for them, this way they earn off the name and don’t risk the financial loss… Read more »
Auba was meant to be in the list to sorry
I don’t actually have a problem with his statement, he’s just being honest and acknowledging what we all knew already. What I do have a slight problem with is the underlying assumption that he’s still CL calibre. On the evidence of this season that seems like a big leap!
In retrospect, replacing Giroud with Lacazette seems like a huge mistake.
Wrong timing for such comments by a striker that has only a single non penalty goal to his name this campaign. He’d do himself a big favor letting his agent to do it while he concentrates on helping the team secure Champions League spot. That way he’d be assured of leaving with his head high and in very good standing with the fans. As it stands now I’m afraid we might be having another Auba situation on our hands. Sad considering Laca’s attitude and commitment throughout his stay at the club.
Lacazette’s a one-dimensional striker. He performs his one-dimension at a level below the top-four standard. He’s a good guy and represents the club quite well but he just doesn’t provide any goal scoring teeth to our attack. Best for him and the club if he moves on this summer.
Laca thanks for all the memories but it’s time to go. Bye bye. An upgrade needed
According to Sky, Man City ready to trigger Haaland’d release clause.
Arsenal as slow off the pitch as they are on it.
Pathetic.