Lyon reject Arsenal’s bid for Alexandre Lacazette

Arsenal have submitted an official bid of €35 million (£29 million) for 25-year-old French forward Alexandre Lacazette, according to an official release from the French club issued this morning.

By issuing its release via Twitter image, Lyon made it exceptionally difficult for this intrepid writer to copy the post into Google translate, so I had to type it in manually - which, considering the number of accents used in French, was the worst borrow a translation from GFFN. Anyway, here’s the nearest approximation of what it says:

Olympique Lyonnais categorically denies having received a €48m offer from Arsenal for Alexandre Lacazette like Le Progrès claims in their edition this morning.

The club regrets yet again that Le Progrès did not decide to contact us before publishing this false information that has created confusion on the day where the Group, on the stock exchange, publishes its annual accounts showing €218.1m, a progression of 111% from 2014/15.

The reality is that the club Arsenal made an offer worth €35m, which Lyon did not follow up on for one reason: OL will keep Alexandre Lacazette who is irreplaceable and who is one of the main leaders in Bruno Genesio’s squad.

For those wondering, Le Progrès is a regional newspaper in Lyon.

It seems that Arsenal’s mooted interest in Lacazette, who scored 23 goals in 40 appearances in all competitions in 2015-16, is very real. Arsenal will have to improve their bid in order to get their man, but this is a heartening sign that we’re one step closer to strengthening the forward line.

Watch this space.