I can’t help but be excited by the arrival of Alexandre Lacazette to the Arsenal side, and it shows that Arsene Wenger can still attract top class talent to the Emirates even without Champions League football. One player in the Arsenal team is just as excited as I am!
Francis Coquelin, who has played with Lacazette in French sides for many many years, is adamant that we have got a very special player. “I’ve known him for a very long time,” Le Coq said on Arsenal.com. “We played together for the youth national team so I know him very well. I’m really happy he’s come to the club. He’s a real asset and a goalscoring machine.
“He scored 37 goals in all competition last season, so he’s shown that he’s a very, very good goalscorer. I think he’s the fourth all-time leading goalscorer for Lyon, after scoring about 130 goals for the club. I’m really happy to have him in the team.
“He can do pretty much everything because he’s someone who likes to get on the ball too. He likes to run in behind the defences that’s something he’s good at and, like I said, he’s a goalscorer. Even in Europe, it’s very difficult to find someone who can score 25 or 30 goals. If he can do that, it will be very special for the club and for the team.
“I’ve never seen someone coming on and scoring so many goals. I’ve seen him come on and score a hat-trick in 20 minutes. He shows that he doesn’t joke in front of the goal, he does the business and that’s what we need.”
That is EXACTLY what we need! If anyone can fire Arsenal to the title it will be this man. Who needs Alexis when we have a goalscoring machine!
Watch all 37 goals that Lacazette scored last season on our new Arsenal Videos Page
Sam P
We need Alexis.
1- Can we win WITH OUT him? Sure…
2- Can we win WITH him and Laca + Ozil?
I’ll take #2 Please
I just hope lacazette adapts quickly
We are going to bid £50 million for Lemar
Lemar has agreed to personal terms
Its just the transfer fee that hasn’t been accepted yet
But I feel better Arsenal paying £50 million for Lemar than paying the same amount for Mahrez
I’m excited very excited to see him play but mindful that the premier league could initially take some adjusting to for him, maybe not and hope not 🙂
@verstellung.
Alexis is goingnwe should get used to the idea.
I’ve real mixed emotions on his situation. When he came I just couldn’t believe it he was one of my current all time favourite players, and we managed to get him 🙂 however he clearly has the ability to rock the boat as we saw last season.
I can’t believe he’ll sign a new contract and if kept on by Wenger we could have a tevez at Manchester City scenario. One proper petulant sulky player on our hands. I don’t want that sort of aura or influence around the club next season
If Wenger has upped the asking price then great I love it! Alexis asks for more per week so we say okay then we want more to sell you, let’s play hard ball!
I think without a shadow of a doubt he’ll go to city but we must either weaken them in a player swap, (unlikely) or achieve a huge selling fee, (and have a guaranteed played of sanchez calibre to come in).
My fear is well achieve a huge fee but fail to find someone worthy to replace him. We then may have another perez situation.
lets keep AS please i dnt know why ppl are now calling him average and disrespecting him alot of late…arsenal fans we really forget quickly
Alexis is not average, he is at the level of Suarez, Bale, Neymar, Greizman which is pretty much world class, and just a level below C. Ronaldo and L. Messi who are in a class of their own.
He also has pristine finishing with little back lift required just like Messi and Aguero (having a low centre of gravity plays a role as well)
Sanchez is also not injury prone so any team he plays for will see him play a minimum of 30 league games per season despite his very high work rate.
His major weaknesses apart from the petulance when he doesn’t get his way (most big players do same; Suarez, Ronaldo, and even Messi) is poor positional discipline as he tends to roam from the left side of the pitch in search of the ball. Another is a tendency to take too many touches on the ball in an attempt to beat as many players as possible before giving a pass or shooting, hence give the opponents an opportunity to close him down or giving an inaccurate pass cos of the pressure he had invited on himself.
Not a player we should lose if we could help it. However, him going to City would actually swing the title in their favour as his goals and assists would be much more than at Arsenal owing to the pattern of play employed by Pep. He would basically replace Leroy Sane who is a good winger, can dribble but finishes poorly (can’t count the number of times Sane has been played through on goal and failed to beat the keeper last season) Sanchez in that position and space will be lethal!
Would be a very difficult decision for Wenger to make if Sanchez absolutely refuses to sign the improved contract on offer and City make a bid of £60M for him.
Keeping Sanchez to play out the last year of his contract will be a good footballing decision as he lives to play and will still give his all regardless of his future destination. However, that would be a very bad financial decision for Arsenal if we had to turn down a bid of 60-80 million for a player we would lose for free in a year’s time.
Wenger’s dilemma is to either make a footballing choice or a financial one.
If City are foolish enough to offer £80 million for him, then he should be sold to them (don’t crucify me yet) .
City lost Caballero, Zabaleta, Sagna, Clichy, all for free. They have already spent £37M on a goalkeeper. If they pay £80M for Sanchez, they would have already spent £117 in this window and would still need to spend a lot more to replace the fullbacks they lost (Daniel Alves will be signed on a free though) . They may have deep pockets but, FFP regulations mean they can’t spend so more than they make, hence Sanchez fee may dent their transfer war chest and force a change of targets elsewhere. This is all conjecture and I could be wrong though.
Man City also bought Bernardo Silva already for 43 million pounds.
Keeping Alexis is like a husband desperately want to keep his wife who has fallen out of love with him and asked for divorce because she has found another man. Who is richer, more handsome, and ready to make her happier. Do you think the husband will be getting the “good stuffs” through the devoice process. I don’t think he will because the wife will keep herself safe for the rich guy. That is the situation we will have with Sanchez if will keep him against his will if truly he wants out. I have seen that with Tevez ,and Ben Arfa . Alexis is professional, so is Tevez and Ben, he could act differently nobody knows. Everyone is guessing and hoping. But do all want unhappy player who will attract unwanted media attention. Have had enough last season. l don’t any more. Between Arsenal and Alexis something is broken. Something 300,000 pounds per week can fix.
What you are not factoring into your nice little scenario is if we keep Sanchez for one year, many things could change for the negative for Sanchez. One thing is he will be 29yrs old and approaching 30 this will make him less of an attractive option, he may also not have had such a productive year … performances, injuries etc (ask Mahrez), it is not unrealistic to expect that there will be some other little hot prospect on the horizon that may take Man City’s interest…(also ask Mahrez as this time last year Arsenal fans were going ape for Mahrez and now it’s “mah?”). Finally he may also see Arsenal doing surprising better than Man City, which may make him re-evaluate his position about joining City.
How I wish The Arsenal was firm .. Wenger should come out and say, “I want De Bruyne in exchange for Sanchez” .. If City does not want, and the player (KDB) does not want, the we do not want as well. What a statement that would be …
*continues to dream
Good point Abel. How much is cash price of EPL? Take 80M pounds away from that. That will be a good business for Arsenal if Man city is foolishly enough to pay that.
Sanchez is not your typical footballer. He is a trouble maker. If he wants to leave this badly to the point of demanding unrealistic sums like 400k a week, then he is looking to make trouble. We should consolidate and let him go. The issue should now be what to get in return for letting him go. But Arsenal fans need to get this in their heads now and get over it. Alexis Sanchez has played his last game for Arsenal and if we buy well, of course we will be fine without him.