Lyon president Jean-Michal Aulas says Arsenal have not made a bid for striker Alexandre Lacazette.
Speculation has been rife in recent weeks that the 25-year-old had made his way to the top of Arsene Wenger’s shopping list despite his asking price creeping close to the £42 million mark.
The Gunners are known to be in the market for a new attacker having already been turned down by Jamie Vardy with Spain’s Alvaro Morata and Wolfsburg’s Julian Draxler the other names being touted.
“I saw Arsene during France matches and he has not told me [of his interest in Lacazette],” Aulas told L’Equipe.
“I don’t think it’s something and it seems Alex wants to spend this season with Lyon in the new stadium.
“He wants to know an adventure in the Champions League could be much better than last season. I think he will stay with us and we are very happy.”
Elsewhere, and as we expected, the rumour suggesting we’d made a last-gasp bid for Lille’s Djibril Sidibe turned out to be nonsense.
L’Equipe had emphatically claimed we’d tried to hijack Monaco’s move for the defender, however, yesterday it was confirmed he’d sealed a 5-year deal at the Stade Louis II.
Thank God for that! Bang average player…
Keep a keen eye over at Madrid.
Marca have confirmed they’ve bought back Morata to keep, which was heavily implied by sources a few weeks back.
Of course it throws some question marks on thier other strikers such as Benzema, but the one flying under all radars and is now very likely to be available with this new Morata news, is Jese Rodriguez.
Jese would be perfect for us.
Wait and see. Something has to give over at Madrid.
Rodriguez, would be the kind of project, Wenger likes and has been famous for.
Madrid have to sell someone to fund Pogba. If they don’t, Pogba might go to United. Worst case scenario…
Don’t know much about this Jese guy, his goalscoring rate is a bit low, presumably because he’s been played as more of a midfielder or winger?
But hey, it’s a better shout than all this idiot talk of us getting a “world class striker”
Jese is class. Hard to have any decent scoring rate when you’re either back up to Benzema or Ronaldo (who will play every single minute of given the chance).
Of the two, I’d deffo take Benzema, but I’ll be happy with Jese.
I was under the impression Benzema has a similar style of play to Giroud? their goalscoring records @ club level are at a similar ratio too.
Where is Akpom
Getting a tad worried now. There’s a real lack of top strikers, and even fewer who’ve been linked to us solidly.
Make something happen, Ivan, Arsene and Dick!
Yes, what exactly are we doing
We signed Asano didn’t we?
Let s get ready guys to get content with Asano as our new Park this season, everything points at that. So much hope not
“I saw Arsene during France matches and he has not told me [of his interest in Lacazette],”
Welcome to Arsenal Lacazette?
“Who is this lacazette, I’ve not heard of him?”
It seems wenger again wants to repeat last season mess, i can bet that wenger will not sign any striker,
I doubt we will ever see Wenger swallow his pride and pay more than he think the player is worth.
Basically not only do we need to find the right quality player, but there better not be any other big clubs interested in him who will pay the asking prize.
Even a club half our size financially, Napoli managed to bully us out of the Higuain deal 3 years ago.
Sometimes I wonder if the board make Wenger use his own money if he wants to buy anyone 😛
Well he did pay 33mil for xhaka or am I wrong ?
Wenger has already paid over the top for Chambers & Xhaka. He’s probably feels he can get better value elsewhere. 90% players struggle to live up to huge price tags & we all know Lacazette, Batshuayi, Lukaku, Morata are nowhere close to as consistent as their price tags suggest they are.
He paid far more than any other club would have done when he bought Henry.
Asano is a significant upgrade to Park. He is much quicker with a keen eye for goals. Does anyone know if we got a work permit?
I love the classic internet scouting report line of “keen eye for goal” as if that means anything tangible.
I think he has potential, but please, don’t make out like you know a huge difference between the two. Your knowledge of him is from the same place as ours; internet scout Yo Utube.
Well that just sums up most of our transfer market periods this past few years. We will be linked with so many superstars but chances are that if we buy any it won’t be from the ones linked with us in d first place. Let’s just hope we get someone good coz nobody especially the media knows arsenes plans
Worst case cenario, we dont buy anyone…again. Would it not be worth a shot to change the formation to a 4-4-2? Seems to fit giroud very well in the national team, and i reckon sanchez would be a very good fit once he is given some coaching in the role
Problem is our midfield. We already have an over abundance of central midfielders, a 2-man midfield isn’t effective for the likes of Ozil.
Somebody on here suggested 4 3 1 2
That would give us 3 midfielders, a 10 and 2 strikers.
That sounds like quite an interesting idea. Giroud + Sanchez or even Giroud + Theo up front could be interesting. Also we could accommodate more of our midfielders.
We are still short up front though.
Could work well with Bellerin providing width on the right, as fullbacks would be ecpected to do in that formation. Question is who would take that role on the left? Monreal hasn’t got the legs and speed to play that kind of fullback/wingback role. That wolfsburg LB could perhaps do it…
Interesting idea, some of the recent purchases align with it too. If you play Mesut as a pure no.10 floating behind a front two, that sacrifices a bit of width. One remedy for that is to have 3 ‘running’ midfielders such as Elneny, Ramsey and Xhaka. Who will be able to cover the width defensively. Given how Arsene likes to invert his wingers often (Ramsey on the right, Alexis on left) it wouldn’t be a huge change and would perhaps give Mesut a bit more room. Giroud and Sanchez (as a striker) would be interesting. Allegri used it effectively at… Read more »
It does seem like it could fit the personnel that we have, but as you say we tend not to do things like this do we.
That said the performances of one or two of our players in the tournaments might have given Arsene something to think about.
Tbh, a 4-3-1-2 will turn into a 4-4-2 diamond because both the wide midfielders will push forward when attacking, and someone like Granit who’ll play at the center will hold back a little. We’ll be susceptible to teams with good attacking wingbacks and full-backs. Pep especially likes to stretch the field wide(anyone remembers our first game vs Bayern with Pep in charge?)
Kind of agree, Alexis always seems a little wasted on the wings to me, operating around Ollie might get more end product from him. And if we pushed Jack out to a left midfield role where he can really utilise his dribbling without leaving us exposed in the centre, then another problem.would be solved. Definitely worth considering/trying
Agree Alexis could play off Giroud the same way as Griezmann does which seems to be working pretty well. Ozil can’t do that role as he isn’t a goalscorer, you could switch him to the right and buy a new LW/ play Ramsey and iwobi there.
Jack on the left has been tried and didn’t work. He doesn’t have the pace or perhaps confidence to take on the rigt back on the outside so continually cuts inside and being left footed seemed to always pass sideways or backwards
The whole point of dribbling is to wrong foot the defender and get past him with pace in the other direction. Jack can’t do that at all if the defender doesn’t press to high and waits for him to move first. That’s the exact reason why Santi who’s a far better dribbler, is ineffective on the wings.
Team>Ozil
Team > Giroud
Best answer in the world!
Heard Dick Law is traveling out to Spain this week.
Though it may have nothing to do with transfers but may be due to the fact he recently bought Pokemon GO and is already after a Mr. Mime in Spain.
lord have mercy lool
Just give Dortmund £60m for Auba FFS.. reports linking him with man city have cooled as they’ve got Nolito
Implying Auba wants to come to us. He doesn’t, he has said so himself.
That’s a relief, I wasn’t sure he is the right material for us, I have strong believe that we will dive in for Draxler, he can fiĺl in there.
I agree with you that Lacazette is not the right fit, and i hope we can get Draxler too.
I do fancy Lacazette for us but that is quite a steep asking price for somebody who didn’t represent his country at Euro 2016. I don’t mean to sound bitchy as a I type this.
It’s a fair point. And what with United willing to fork out £100 million for Pogba the market really is crazy. But for our sake Wenger and the board better have something up their sleeves because if we go into the season with only Xhaka as our new signing we definitely won’t go far. Again.
Why no rumor talks about Mahrez and Higuain? I think we must be having conversations with Leicester and Napoli respectively about these two. Also, I like the idea of Draxler and Aubemayang. We’ve got the money, let’s go big and get any two of these four.
Probably aren’t any rumours for the people we actually do want to sign because we like to do things on the QT
Yaya Sanogo it is then
This is it folks. Groundhog season returns. First reports about the famous old £200m war-chest. Then the optimism of new signings, swiftly followed by fabricated transfer stories. Then the anxiety as these stories are found to be completely fictional. Then the typical left field signing of unknown entity. One for the future (see yaya Sanogo) Then the outcry as we see our targets move to other clubs. (see Mikki to Utd) Then the same old stories appear in the media ‘wenger not willing to meet asking price for striker’ (despite said war-chest). Then the outrage as we embark on a… Read more »
I’ll make something clear about Lacazette…
If we wanted him, we would’ve got him by now. Heck we would’ve got him this window as he’s been at home and not at the Euros.
We’re not in for him.
Don’t de surprised if we by a wide player and convert him into a striker. I honestly think Draxler has the intangibles to become a world class striker.
Don’t be surprised if we buy*
You may have a point.
I’m personally getting fed up of myself and everyone second guessing wtf the clubs plans are. Just do some bloody business.
Very
It really does seem that we’re being left behind. Or is Wenger waiting for the dust to settle after the initial transfer scramble to conduct his business? To be fair to him, he tried to get Vardy. And then seemed to run out of ideas (I understand there is a dearth of good strikers) My hope is that we are gonna announce someone to tie in with the away kit launch.
It’s amazing how much crap is posted on all of the various news and blog sites about transfers and how little of it actually has any truth behind it. It’s to the point that it’s tough to believe anything until there is an official announcement from Arsenal.
Candreva to Napoli. Higuain to Arsenal.
F it, take a punt on Yarmalenko.
Always seemed odd that we’d be in for a player that couldn’t even make the bench for the French squad when our very own Olivier was leading their line.
The real question is: who are we in for?!
I’m amazed that Arsenal are so relaxed right now. With PEP, Moron-iho, Klopp and Conte all beginning to advance their respective teams and adding strength, we are happy to sit back and wait for the bargain of the century. A lot of our players are going to be tired from the Euro’s which means we are going to start with a team that isn’t our preferred XI, yet Arsenal are as calm as hindu cows about signing some new talent to advance our team. That is how you invigorate, jumpstart a club, a team and the fans, why we don’t… Read more »
This means that we will sign Lacazette on the last day of the transfer window!