According to a report in Portuguese newspaper A Bola, Arsenal and Sporting Lisbon have agreed a €5m transfer fee for Lucas Perez.
However, the deal remains far from assured as there’s a wages issue: the Spaniard is currently on €3.5m a year with the Gunners, while Sporting can ‘only’ afford a salary of €2m per annum.
Given that Arsenal paid £17.5m for the 29 year old who will be 30 next month but until that time remains 29 because that’s how it works, the acceptance of such a low fee may be a way of accepting a deal which will help the buying club pay a bit more in wages.
Whether they can or not remains to be seen, and if not it’s hard to convince anyone to take a pay cut of €1.5m.
Perez was a bit-part player under Arsene Wenger in his first season with the club, and then had an unsuccessful loan spell last season with his hometown club Deportivo la Coruna. He was the subject of criticism for fans during the campaign which ultimately saw them relegated from La Liga.
The forward was not included in the squad for the midweek trip to Dublin, and it seems he’s very much surplus to requirements.
Perez has also been linked this summer with tonight’s opponents Lazio, as well as fellow Serie A side Frosinone.
Is it a thing with us that we do not extract good value on our players? I mean we sold Szczesny for 11m while Liverpool sold their third choice keeper for 12m who has never played regularly for them?
I understand that Liverpool sell English players who come with a premium and all due to the HG quota.. But I still think we undervalue our players when we do sell them. We don’t seem to gain the benefits of the inflated market that some teams seem to do so. Any guesses why is that the case?
Why will we be able to sell our players for good value when arsenal fans behave like spoilt brats and condemn the players as worst ever. Call them names and say that they are not supposed to be footballers. We knock the price down when we do this.
That’s a thing for all football fans. Not unique to gooners
It’s the arsenal ‘fans’ who behave like spoilt brats and condemn our fans as the worst ever and blame them for everything wrong at the club that really get on my nerve…..your argument about prices dropping because of the fans is priceless though so cheers for that – gave me a great laugh !
Is this inception?
We sold Kieran Gibbs and Theo Walcott for ridiculously low prices so I think you could say we really do suck.
theo, was crap.
He wasnt all that bad, and given value of English players I think we could have got more.
Scout reports are not written by fans. We sell average players, we get peanuts. We sell them a year before contract expiry, we get even less. Simple really.
Well to be fair, we did sell a certain Ox for a decent amount…
And another unnamed Alex(is) for what was a crap 6 months with another shitty club
We got more for Ox because he has a higher ceiling then those two, plus we actually wanted to keep him. Should have got more for Walcott mind, being a full England international below 30, with a more than decent goal record.
With Gibbs and Theo injury risk was a major factor in knocking the price down plus age.
Its the same with Jack.
Fragile used products.
Well we’d like to get more for our player sales, bit it’s terribly impolite to haggle, so what can we do?
I think we can’t always trust the figures we read in the papers and reported on Twitter, firstly, and we don’t know what other kind of business goes into those fees (agents, other agreements, etc.; i.e., the money the club receives might actually be just a fraction of the transfer fee quoted). We lost Szczesny for so little in part because he was already gone from the club on loan and was arguably surplus to our needs; though he stated at the time that he wanted to come back and play for Arsenal, the writing was on the wall when… Read more »
Don’t even get me started on Giroud sale. We should NOT have sold him in January. The whole thing was a fiasco bc Mslintat wanted to load on Aubameyang and Mhkitaryan his ex Dortmund mates. Frankly we should have agreed personal terms with Auabmeyang and took him in the summer, let him help Dortmund and leave his German club more amicably. That way we would have had Giroud NOT cup tied and able to offer something different in the Europa. Poor strategic planning. With the Ox, we should have forced him to put pen to paper when Gnabry was asking… Read more »
Totally agree about OG. Love the guy. The panic mode set in during the Alexis drama and Giroud was an unfortunate casualty. I miss the OG. He got some stick from the fans but he was always giving 100% and a played a great hold-up role even if he struggled in front of goal at times.
It’s partly about the wages. The news article makes that clear. He’s depreciated in value because a) we’ve mismanaged the player and b) he’s clearly not that good having been rejected by both Emery and Wenger at Arsenal, so we likely overpaid by quite a bit when we bought him. He’s also nowhere near the Spain squad, and never has been. He’s a good player but I don’t think he’s Premier League quality.
He didn’t exactly change minds with his loan spells either.
I don’t think its entirely fair to say we’ve mismanaged him.
I think Szcz was qualified as hg player also.
Can’t help but feel we always sell players for much less than other Prem clubs. City and Chelsea flog off their academy players for 10-20m, we sell ours for 2m. A seasoned but proven Lucas goes for 5m while United flog Blind (who flopped hard for 4 years) for 14m, a couple of million short of what the paid for him.
We knock our players down like no other fans do!!!
because most of them are crap, that’s why
Its because we are usually very desperate to sell. So, other clubs seeing our desperation under-value our players. It goes this way, a little bit of ‘spending psychology’. If we are not desperate to offload any player and go on to buy what we need- Dembele, Vida, Vasquez, all of a sudden the price of Welbeco, Lucas, Mustafi would skyrocket. For instance, if Rael Madrid need to sell to fund a top quality striker, instead of relying on Arsenal money, they get their man and upgrade the value of their own making Arsenal desperate. Its called the psychology of marketing’,… Read more »
“spurn a woman and she’ll fall cheap on you”. Let me guess, you are a male, no?
It’s because it has been a long time since we last sold a player we wanted to keep, apart from Alexis. There is a big difference for example between Dortmund trying to take Jaden Sancho from City knowing City want to keep him and PAOK trying to buy Akpom who every man and his dog knows we’re trying to get off the wage bill (and who is 5 years older). In the past we have got good prices for our players – £20m+ for Toure + Clichy and £25m+ for Nasri + Adebayor which is probably equivalent to £50m-£70m transfers… Read more »
So Dick Law didn’t do too bad and current regime isn’t doing as well as some imagine. Market had changed in second part of Wenger’s reign. He no longer had best picking of France bc PL had begun to shed their xenophobia with influx of foreign managers, new oil rich clubs and PL/Cable money deal. Mslintat/Sanheli were put in place not because we were doing poorly in market but bc we would likely lose acumen in market with Wenger’s departure. Current environment for us is impacted somewhat by 2 years out of CL but in buying terms there are 8… Read more »
We wanted to keep Ox actually but tbf we got a decent fee for him
Genuine question – did we really get £35 million + Bellerin + £17.5m for Cesc?
I never knew that Hector was included in the deal, and I thought our sell on for Cesc was only something like £5m.
Spurs sold their bench warmer CB Kevin Wimmer for 18m after he failed to impress. They made a substantial profit on him. In today’s inflated market we should be able to get 15-17m for Perez, but strangely we can’t value our players.
Ospina is a very decent keeper and played at the World Cup. We should be looking at at least 10m for him.
We put Ospina up for sale last summer for 5m by all accounts & no one was interested. Looking for 10m now seems a tad far fetched.
How is he not 30 if he has crossed 29. How does that even work.
Because he’s still 29.
Well, but only until he is 30.
27 millenials
Better to get the £67,000 per week off the wage bill if the Manager has no interest in using home
even better to get rid of ozil,s £350.000 per week wage bill, just imagine what we could do with that
Troll
For me it’s comic relief ..soothes the nerve.
Money saved merely goes to paying Lichsteiner for the year.
To me, the Lichsteiner free transfer is OK but unnecessary.
We have AMN to cover BOTH flanks and even with Kolasinac out we still have Monreal left and Bellerin right not to mention Calum.
BUT I suppose we are erring on caution which isn’t the worse thing.
Even better still if you shut up about Ozil for once … I won’t hold my breath though
Still spilling bile over Wilshere’s departure, eh?
People might call you a troll but i think you are spot. He has nowhere near justified that sort of wage. He pumped the club just like theo did when rvp left. For someone w a degree in econmics we made some damn strange financial decisions during Wenger years
Yeah,but he is the one who makes us tick,he tops all our creative charts,he is a genuine world class player.if you are too blind to see that than it’s your loss.and we had to give him 300k wage,sanchez was looking for 400k,not unreasonable.amd given the state of our squad if we wanted to bring someone of his caliber and potent in,we would’ve failed to do so.He has his flaws and may not be everyone’s cup of tea,but that doesn’t mean you can ignore the fact how underrated and integral to our success he is.and if he left for free,he wouldn’t… Read more »
In todays market, you must feel pretty worthless being sold for €5m
Agreed, it’s fast replacing ‘nominal fee’ as the norm for a low level player
Its weird bc I would have valued Perez at at least 9 to 10m.
In fact I thought there was an offer for him at around that price last summer.
Would have thought we could have sold him earlier last summer at 28yrs for a higher price instead of another year on loan and further devaluation risk.
Hope that one goes through.Wonder where sportings money gone after losing so many high earners from the wage bill..
Oh and off topic but Roma apparently looking at Xhaka if N’zonzi doesn’t happen.”Can’t afford a 29 year old for 30 mill but we can of course get the player who just signed a new contract and been arguably the best midfielder for one of the top 10 clubs in Europe for less than that.” logics etc.
So would he rather rot in the reserves or go on loan to a club where he doesn’t really belong just so that he can secure that extra money? Where’s his footballing ambition? He’s not played regular first team football for his own club since he joined us – isn’t it time to look at his career and think that this might be his last throw of the dice? Maybe I’m a bit blinkered but for 1.5m a year I’d seriously consider how people are going to remember my career, it’s not as if he’ll be sleeping rough with that… Read more »
1.5m is a lot. It’s enough to take care of his family come what may. What hypocritical BS.
Next to leave has got to be Campbell to leave. I don’t see him staying. Would be extremely surprised if he does.
We have got to be surely going in for a winger now. If we don’t then we have all got to accept on the fact that this been a very average Transfer Window. Dare I say..Below Par!
Welcome to badbusiness.com. we do like to giveaway decent players. Always looked more effective than Welbeck for example and a shame he didn’t get a fair shot. Will be someone’s gain for sure. I wish him well.
It’a combination of wage tiers in football created by wealth disparity, and the concept of supply and demand
If you have an oversupply of players and only 25 spots for players who are over the age of 21? Then it puts you in a very weak selling position.
Clubs know you need to sell to buy and ease your wage bill.
Finishing your transfer window before other leagues gives them a huge competitive advantage, they know you have to do your business before them, so they have a fair chance of getting good deals with any surplus players
Does anyone have a screenshot of the original “he’s 29 until he’s 30” thread? I believe I saw it a while back but would love to see it again.
That was an epic thread, hence t mention of the same by blogs.
Same old..
We’re getting ripped off as usual.
Perez kinda sums up Wenger’s total loss of judgement in the transfer market in his second decade at Arsenal. Le Prof paid £17 million quid for a dud. This, and stuff like the Sanchez fiasco, so just how much he had lost the plot by the end. Many millions were squandered by Inspector Clueless before he was finally booted out this summer.
I here that Welbeck is another cash-drain who the club is looking to move on.
Good.
What Sanchez fiasco?
The not taking Man City’s £65 million quid and then letting Sanchez go for less than half that. The professor of economics cost us a fortune with his stubborn, illogical grandstanding.
So far, I’ve been very impressed with the way the new management are rebuilding the squad and getting rid of the blood-sucking rubbish. The club need to be ruthless with Ramsey now: he should either sign or go.
The man city situation is with hindsight. We traded a player who didn’t want to play for us anymore for an excellent player who wanted to be at Arsenal. Late in the game yes but we did well out of that one. Hardly a fiasco.
How the hell is it hindsight?. Either u take 65M cash or risk getting nothing 9 months later. Simple decision. No hindsight required. And Mhki still has a bit to prove in my eyes
It was ludicrous to reject the City offer even if it was too late to get a replacement.
A forward thinking club would have told both sanchez and ozil..sign by august 1 or sort out moves at £X price. Or spend a year in reserves.
I would have been sad if that disgusting Sanchez had won the league with City. He would have like, ‘ I told this Arsenal folks’. Let him rot in disunited. That is what greedy and disrespectful people like him deserve. A player that Arsene gave unprecedented latitude and opportunities, in the end he insulted him and the club at large. Why is he unable to replicate that form in that theatre nightmares.
I for one was glad to see the back of Sanchez and I couldn’t care less how well or not he did wherever he went as long as he’s not poisoning the atmosphere with us.
I wanted Sanchez to be sold before last season for the simple reason that he didn’t want to be here. The thinking from the club/Wenger’s side was about not selling top players to rivals and that he’d be professional enough to play well one last season. I didn’t agree with it but at the time this had a lot of support among the fans. To me this forward thinking club has managed to keep Ozil, get Mkhitaryan, conduct an orderly amd dignified resignation from a once great but now stagnant Wenger and bring in a new manager with a very… Read more »
Fats only talk with hindsight. I bet he can tell us the winning lottery after it is announced too.
Yes, Ramsy should either sign or leave, so that we can buy Vida. The combination of Torreira Guendouzi, and Xhaka is lethal already. We can’t indulge any more stupidity. Ozil is still there.
Except Perez, Xhaka, Mustafi and Aubamayang weren’t signings sanctioned by Wenger. Instead the wider issue is to why we’re still underselling our players. We continuously let our star players erode down their contracts which weakens our position. That falls on whoever deals with contracts. Signing duds is part of the game arsenal play as for every dud there is a kos or a holding or a monreal etc. Our porblem is not holding on to players which seems to be a continuous trend recently losing a highly rated gk. It’s the main reason why I think ramsey wont sign and… Read more »
Who were they sanctioned by then, Gunnersaurus?
You jest of course but some of us have waited a long time for Gunnersaurus to get a more hands on role at the club.
I was worried that we would go an entire thread without an attack on Wenger.
Reject a Deportivo bid because they wouldn’t pay more, sell him for even less one year later. Some things never change.
Yeah I checked and Deportivo were offering 10-12m euros which was a decent price considering we paid 21m and he had been 2 years with us.
Don’t understand why we rejected that and risked further depreciation and regress plus another birthday for the player.
Not one of the better pieces of business during Wenger’s reign.
Paid quite a bit for him, hardly featured for us. Mostly loans.
It was a hedge buy.
That said if we can strike him off (no pun) may as well.
I think between Welbeck, Campbell and Perez, Danny is the more useful bc of his frame, power and height. Sporting is a more than decent outfit. Hopefully they can sought out wages for him and his shorts.
For that amount why not just keep him and use him in the Europa league and if needed in the PL?
Perez and Debuchy must rank as some of the poorest buys in the Wenger era. Wenger has made many mistakes like everyone-else but he tended to pay comparatively little for players so impact to club was minimized. In later years we struggled to find strikers in particular. They began to become precious commodity as there were many more clubs in Europe in the hunt plus the new buying power of the PL. Perez and Debuchy cost us a fair amount and have/are being sold for marginally less. At very least Dick Law’s travails in the Costa Rican jungles was worth… Read more »
Dunno if Welbeck will feature later today.
Will be excited to see how Granit and Torreira pan out. I suspect we may throw GUendouzi in the mix as well.
I suppose the more experienced fullbacks in Lichsteiner and Monreal will also feature.
I suppose selling Perez will help with Lichsteiner’s wages this season.
Most of the comments here have to do with Arsenal selling players and getting less than what they should. But am I the only one who thinks that Perez could’ve actually been a decent player for us if he was given a few more chances? You play 16M, then let him sit on the bench and loan him out? The few times I watched him, he seemed to do ok. What was it, 7 goals in 11 games – mostly as sub. He has a touch of class about him and a good finisher. Had he been given perhaps a… Read more »
He’s human and he probably lost a lot of confidence by hardly ever getting played.
True. Should play him and give a chance to prove atleast
Some of the strategic thinking to do with player transfers isn’t the sharpest.Would have kept Giroud till this summer. Agree terms with Auba last Jan but keep him at Dortmund to see out their season and leave on a high.
Meanwhile we would have had a striker NOT cup tied for Europa.
Could easily have used him for leverage say with Mrseille should they be amicable to selling Thauvin.
Fucking ridiculous decision to turn down the 13M Depor were offering last summer! Same terrible decision making that saw Sanchez forced to stay when we could have got 60M for hiim. Wtf??!
You can’t believe everything written about offers made for players. If Deportivo offered 13, we would have accepted it.