How much will Lucas Perez signing lift Arsenal spirits?

To be honest I was getting to the point in this summer transfer window when I started thinking that any signing would do for Arsenal, as long as Arsene Wenger got his finger out and did something other than his usual Gallic Frenchman’s shrug while complaining about how hard it was to find players even though every other club in the Premier League seemed to be having no trouble.

And to be honest again, I have a sneaking suspicion that the new signing Lucas Perez, officially confirmed yesterday as reported here at Just Arsenal from the Spanish La Liga club Deportivo La Coruna, could be a bit of a last minute panic buy from the boss, mainly as a way of placating the restless Arsenal fans calling for some money to be spent.

Maybe I should have more faith in Wenger and the Arsenal scouting team though, especially considering that he is reluctant to splash the cash at the best of times and has proved himself stubbornly resistant to any pressure from the fans and the football media when it comes to the transfer market.

One media source that thinks the signing of the Spanish striker could be a great move for the Gunners is The Telegraph, which suggests that our new player’s record last season in a side that apart from his contribution could well have been relegated shows that Arsenal are getting a real talent.

They even call him a ‘beacon of efficiency’ up front and that is certainly something that Arsenal could do with. He is certainly something different to our current first choice centre forward Olivier Giroud and perhaps that will increase the boost to the team’s morale that any signing would have given us.

We will have to wait at least a couple of weeks to see, of course, but how much of a boost do you think the signing of Lucas Perez will give the Gunners and our hopes of securing a major trophy this season?

Bob.

Tags Deportivo Giroud Wenger

25 Comments

  1. Its a good signing for the club. Loaning Campbel;l and Wilshere just spoiled the fun for me. Like i said its just a personal feeling.
    I just hope Cazorla ,ramsey and co stays fit. You don’t watch to watch Coquelin and Elneny . Trust me I saw it last season and I also saw it against liverpool. They would run and run and run around doing nothing.

    1. Together you definitely have a point… But with the right partner they’re both capable of doing a job. We have so many midfielders who are often guilty of trying to overdo things, those two are definitely not guilty of that. (aside from a few rash challenges by Le Coq)

  2. The transfer market can be so silly and so inflated lately, we got holding for 2 mil, he’s a player of the season from his club but in a lower league. At the same time if you were trying to get a player of the season guy from any of the PL clubs, even if their club was relegated it would cost more than 35 – 40 mil, maybe a lot more for English 20 yo player. All the best to the newcomers and hope Wilshire becomes the player of the season wherever he goes on loan 🙂

  3. Thumbs up : if you expect a wenger to make a signing on deadline day
    Thumbs down : if you think wenger already did more than you expected 😛

    1. I’m torn… Gnabry, Wilshere and Campbell all leaving/being loaned, potentially Akpom to follow and only Perez in?
      Sanchez, Giroud, Perez, Theo, Ox, Iwobi (Jeff promotion)
      A lot of quality leaving and a bit thin up top?

      1. I wanna see how Sanchez – Giroud – Pérez works out. I’m guessing Walcott will replace giroud in a fluid front 3. But apart from that you can expect iwobi and Ox to be the next back ups. Not lacking in quantity surely. If we were to make another good quality signing for the front three then incoming player wouldn’t get regular play time. Bony on loan or Danny ings can be an option just to fill in case injury curse strikes. But then if we were gonna sign another striker who gets benched why did we loan Campbell. Thinking too much lol 😛

        1. Perez must stand mostly as target man in the center, the real reason why we bought him in. “Jamie Vardy” from La Liga that’s what AW expect from him.

        2. We play in a lot of comps though… I thought we were done, but these loan moves and the potential sale of Gnabry make me wonder.
          I don’t think another move is essential, and for all I know a youngster or two is ready to make an impact. But I do just feel with those exits we’re one short.

          1. If no one else comes in then AW is gambling on the new guys to have injury free seasons. Not selling Wils, Gnabry etc hints at the fact it might be his last year

  4. Perez is no way near a panic buy.

    Wenger stated that they began the transfer window with two clear targets: Morata or Lacazette. Sadly, both were unavailable. We scored 6 goals in our first 3 matches without a striker, also against Liverpool and Leicester.

    Signing a 17 million striker who scored 19 goals for a mid-table team in La Liga is a bargain not a panic buy. Signing Park Chu Yong as a back up is panic buy.

    1. Absolutely right, we had contacted Perez earlier in the window. He was always on Wengers list. He is not in anyway a panic buy.

  5. We’ve become bloated over the last 10 years with underperforming/underachieving and or injured players, Wengers most successful squads were slim with the core team playing most of the games and he used to time the introduction of youngsters and covering players perfectly. Their 15 minutes of fame coinciding with us needing cover for an important first teamer.

    If these new players are typical Wenger rough diamonds at CB, CDM and ST, can stay fit and with some driftwood going out on loan etc then this is our strongest and most streamlined squad in a decade, I hope it’ll be strong enough. Wenger needs to win the title or CL this year.

  6. If you believe Perez is a top 10 striker in Europe, you must be happy today. If you realize that he is not even a top 10 striker in Spain, you might be disappointed.

    How does Arsenal compete for the highest honors domestically and in Europe if they fail to attract the very top talent?

    The fact is that Arsenal are not shopping on the top shelf (except for Sanchez and Ozil) and always seem to be shopping in the bargain bin.

    I’m not saying these players are bad, but how are Arsenal going to beat the top teams that buy the very top players? Chances are the’re not going to beat them.

    1. Mustafi and Xhaka are absolutely top shelf.
      Same things were being said last year, but the only team to finish above us was Leicester and what was their net-spend? Every season fans get googly eyed at oppositions signings, but do tell? Who was a big name signing from an opposition club that was successful last season??
      I can think of only two in De Bruyne and Martial…

  7. At least one player needs to move on permanently, on loan or face being demister as a result of us now having 26 players (16 non homegrown and 10 home grown) it looks heavily as though wilshire will be that man, although for me it would have been either the first or the last name on this list, if not 3 but not Jack so as to bring in another 2 signings.
    Macey (already 3 keepers ahead of him)
    Debuchy
    Jenkinson (long term injury)
    Mertesacker (long term injury)
    Wilshire
    Welbeck (long term injury)
    Sanogo
    But given wenger said he would only bring in 3 signings forthefirst but has actually made 4, I don’t think I will be holding my breath till 11pm tonight.

  8. The time to make heroes and reputations is now.

    Let’s back the team and hop our players can stay fit. If we can match Leicester’s level “fitness wise” like last season I am sure we will be in the top 2 of PL.

    Our players have that quality. Just need them to have full injury free seasons.

  9. No surprise to learn that Wenger tries to model Arsenal at least to some degree on Barcelona – made a conscious effort years ago to buy shorter, faster players to give us speed rather than muscle-

    And I suspect will try to emulate the prowess of Barca front three, with Sanchez on the left, Giroud up top, and Perez on the right-

    At the very least I think he’ll experiment and explore that. To achieve it needs great defensive midfield behind them which is why he spent top dollar (by Wenger standards at least) on Granit-

    And also helps explain the Wiltshire loan move – because he doesn’t really fit into that system so well being a box-to-box player.

    And when fit we’d still have Wellbeck as back-up – Looks like a good team shape to me. And think we genuinely be aiming and competing for the title along with our rivals

    COYG!

    1. PS: It perhaps ALSO explains why Wenger seems to be falling back in love with Walcott – because that system would fit him – and he’d be valuable backup along with the OX

    2. Wilshere would fit the Barca style, if you watch Barca then you will see intelligent passing and Wilshere can do that WHEN fit, so once in a blue moon hehe.

      Loaning Wilshere out appears more for him, he needs game time, he needs to prove his fitness… There is no doubt he has the skill but we have big doubts over his fitness. He has just lost his auto place in the England squad with Woy not being the manager, Big Sam has told Wilshere he needs to play to be picked.

      Yes Wilshere can play as a box to box but that isn’t the only role he can play, he can play the deep lying playmaker like he did for England to qualify or he can play in a more advanced ACM role.

      A Barca player can play multiple roles, they may excel at a particular role but they are intelligent enough to cover each other and have awareness of the other roles.

      If we was going to liken our attack with the front 3 you said then it would be more like Real Madrid, Barca have 3 mobile attackers, Giroud is NOT a mobile attacker.

      Got to say one more thing, Wenger doesn’t appear to have fallen out of love with Theo so he didn’t need to fall back in love with him, Wenger has always shown faith in Theo… Part of the reason he has a wage which no other team would have given him. If he deserves the wage is another question but just look at how Wenger has been saying that Theo is about to have the season of his life AGAIN >.< I hope he is right as Theo is gonna be with us and I would like to see us win something.

  10. something i don,t understand people are calling wenger tight saying he doesn,t like to spend money and the same people are calling perez a panic buy which to me doesn,t make any sense,why would someone who hates spending money wastes 20 millions on a player they don,t fancy and if someone tells me that wenger was just trying to appease the fans well i very much doubt that !!

  11. Perez himself has confirmed that Arsenal got in touch at the START of the transfer window, he may not be Wengers 1st choice but to say he is a panic buy shows clear ignorance, go watch the interviews of new players at least on the Arsenal.com website.

    As for Wenger being the man who doesn’t like to spend;
    http://www.90min.com/posts/3667063-reports-in-france-claim-arsenal-board-blocked-arsene-wenger-s-chase-for-antoine-griezmann?a_aid=35560

    Reports in France indicate that Wenger has been sold short by the board, board make promises of money available but leave Wenger to take the blame when the board get cold feet on a BIG buy.
    “Despite the fan backlash, mainly at Wenger, the board won’t release the funds, and have left the manager to soak up all the blame. ”
    Well he is paid well to take the blame, why else would he be paid such a wage? He isn’t winning us the EPL so there has to be another reason why he gets so damn much…

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