MistaT wrote:

Wonder why this wasn't done earlier?

Surely we're not signing him only because Sanchez failed at CF in our first two games.

Because this guy isn't our first (and probably not second) choice.

Mirth wrote:

goon wrote:

Of course Ornstein is speculating, he's not exactly disguising it either.

Yep, he's even said this is from AST and not the club.

Yeah, it's particularly weird how speculating Ornstein is this summer. He just tweeted that Spurs is interested in Zaha and then quoted Zaha's agent for that info. Seems like he needs something to fall back from the abuses he gets when transfer fails.

I would be a lot happier if Perez signed early at the start of the window. Could have gotten us 5 more points at this stage. If we waited this long, one would expect us to be waiting for a top player nearing the end.

Captain wrote:

Ricky1985 wrote:

Watched a couple of videos and he reminds me of Griezmann in the way he plays. Looks really good value at £17m. I hope we still have something else lined up after we get this guy in though.

:saint:

Yep, I can't shake the feeling that we still have something big up our sleeves.

https://moarfootball.com/2016/08/25/a-deportivo-la-coruna-fan-on-lucas-perez/

Bit more on him from a Depor fan.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

Petter Veland reckons he will be a backup with potential to take Giroud's place.

This guy seems to know his stuff. Here he is in December saying Arsenal will Lucas Perez in Jan. 

To be fair I don't see Veland mentioning Arsenal there. He isn't a transfer guru, more of a football guru. Knows pretty much all there is to know about Spanish football.

Ricky1985 wrote:

https://moarfootball.com/2016/08/25/a-deportivo-la-coruna-fan-on-lucas-perez/

Bit more on him from a Depor fan.

Thanks Ricky, very interesting indeed!

So last season was the first time he played center forward. 

I am worried he may not be ready to start as lone striker in a League like this and will first start on the wing. Wenger's desire to bring Vardy in and now Lucas does point us trying for more directness and penetration.

Ornstein confirmed we have swooped in for him, medical tomorrow according to most sources.

I am happy now with Lucas and Mustafi both getting done. Only complaint is both could have been completed before the first game and we may have had more than a point on the board.

@[deleted] Mustafi has been injured.. Arsenal fans just ignore that when raging about why the Mustafi deal wasn't done sooner.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

@[deleted] Mustafi has been injured.. Arsenal fans just ignore that when raging about why the Mustafi deal wasn't done sooner.

I wasn't aware he was injured. Always thought we were haggling on price/ Valencia were waiting for replacement. 

Eventually we have had to pay a lot of money. The club gets it now I guess. 

By most accounts Valencia wanted 50m euros for Mustafi, so if we wanted him earlier we probably would have had to pay a lot closer to that fee. The crap about sacrificing points for the sake of "2 or 3 million" was always nonsense.

goon wrote:

By most accounts Valencia wanted 50m euros for Mustafi.

That is mostly nonsense since his release clause is 50m anyway. It's pure speculation.

Who knows, but given that we've agreed on approximately 42m euros it can't be far off. What's definitely nonsense is the idea that they only wanted 25m and were were only willing to pay 20.

goon wrote:

Who knows, but given that we've agreed on approximately 42m euros it can't be far off. What's definitely nonsense is the idea that they only wanted 25m and were were only willing to pay 20.

Spot on.

goon wrote:

What's definitely nonsense is the idea that they only wanted 25m and were were only willing to pay 20.

Did anyone say that? Can't seem to recall other than the fact that Dean tweeted about it.

It could well be that we have decided to pay up to their valuation since it's getting closer to deadline and other clubs are actively looking for a CB.

------------- Giroud -----------
Sanchez --- Özil ----- Perez

Looks like a decent attack to me. Perez to go up front if Giroud is injured or off the boil?

I would do disgusting things to get James! I don't really think he's on the market this summer though.

Here's the Perez goal I mentioned earlier, by the way:

Edu like finish.

Can't believe we're actually doing stuff in the market, finally something to get excited about.

I know very little about this guy as all i've seen are highlight clips which have underwhelmed me in that he seems to thrive on chaos which is the opposite of how Wenger sets up his teams. The positive is filling a hole in our game and pleasing Ozil and Xhaka with his runs into space but, much like Podolski, i do not see Wenger ever trusting him at point.

Anyway, 17m for him is pretty decent all things considered. It could be a lot worse, just ask West Ham fans what they think about paying 28m for Zaza.

Clrnc wrote:

Anyway, 17m for him is pretty decent all things considered. It could be a lot worse, just ask West Ham fans what they think about paying 28m for Zaza.

Just as Perez turned down Leicester, Southampton, Napoli, Zenit and Sevilla this summer, unglamorous teams like West Ham have to pay a premium to convince players to join them so it was 28m or nothing.

Never heard of him before the link came up the other day. On paper looks a bit like a budget journeyman option who has scored double figures for a season once in his career. But we're at the point where we just need someone so would have to be better than the options we already have for when Giroud breaks down.

Spanish Robbie Keane

The new Raul

Eduardo da Silva type signing. Let's hope he can chip in with a decent goal output.
I think he'll end up on the wings and won't play the lone striker role too often.

Petty much the same as most of you, never heard of him. Seems to have a decent scoring record but hardly looks like he is the going to be the player to take us to that next level. Hope he does well for us and demonstrates his quality but he certainly does not seem like he was in our top targets so is this the real quality Wenger has referred to.

So this is our madness...

fingers crossed he has a late career explosion vardy/payet style. plucky unheralded vets are in vogue atm

Cannon wrote:

Rohit wrote:

VillaverdeRCD #21 @VillaverdeRCD 8:07 PM - 9 Jun 2016
El bielorruso dice que si Vardy no va al Arsenal,el Arsenal terminará por fichar a Lucas Pérez,al que ya vinieron a ver en invierno a Riazor

Above user claimed in June itself that we will sign Lucas Perez if we fail with Vardy #ITK

Yeah i saw this. He goes on to say that apparently there is an AFC scout who hails from Galicia, same region as Deportivo and perez. He scouted perez over 'winter' and gave this info.

Edit: You have to wonder why we waited...

I thought about this. I think one reason could be that we did not want to show our hand/overpay or worse lose the player. Had we approached him/depor in june, the depor could have sat on it and asked other clubs to bid just to increase the price. Or even clubs like west ham/spurs could have offered player BIG wages. By hijacking the everton deal we have essentially matched their offer and possibly wages and lured him by the prospect of playing CL and for a bigger club. Just a theory though.

EDIT: i meant to imply losing the player as well. Have edited that in. I can understand he was our backup option. 

If that's the case then I hope the savings are worth the 5-8 points dropped by going into the season under-manned.

Cannon wrote:

Cannon wrote:

Yeah i saw this. He goes on to say that apparently there is an AFC scout who hails from Galicia, same region as Deportivo and perez. He scouted perez over 'winter' and gave this info.

Edit: You have to wonder why we waited...

I thought about this. I think one reason could be that we did not want to show our hand or overpay. Had we approached him/depor in june, the depor could have sat on it and asked other clubs to bid just to increase the price. Or even clubs like west ham/spurs could have offered player BIG wages. By hijacking the everton deal we have essentially matched their offer and possibly wages and lured him by the prospect of playing CL and for a bigger club. Just a theory though.

Doesn't work at all since he has a 20m euro release clause.

Cannon wrote:

Cannon wrote:

Yeah i saw this. He goes on to say that apparently there is an AFC scout who hails from Galicia, same region as Deportivo and perez. He scouted perez over 'winter' and gave this info.

Edit: You have to wonder why we waited...

I thought about this. I think one reason could be that we did not want to show our hand or overpay. Had we approached him/depor in june, the depor could have sat on it and asked other clubs to bid just to increase the price. Or even clubs like west ham/spurs could have offered player BIG wages. By hijacking the everton deal we have essentially matched their offer and possibly wages and lured him by the prospect of playing CL and for a bigger club. Just a theory though.

That's a bonkers theory because we did approach at least two strikers in June and July respectively

The most accurate explanation is often the simplest and obvious one. We got him because he had been on our radar. We failed with other preferred options and Everton were closing in on him. For once we bought a forward we were looking at rather than end empty handed. I don't believe the outlay on him changes our position if a quality forward becomes available.

Theories also doing the round - he is brought in to replace Campbell and indicate to selling clubs we aren't desperate for a striker any more.

If we can actually sign that forward we need, it will be the greatest window ever.