Report: Arsenal to bid on La Liga striker

According to a report from El Confidencial, Arsenal are set to place a bid on the services of striker Lucas Pérez, currently of Deportivo in La Liga.

Everton currently is also reportedly in for Lucas, but Arsenal are looking to call and raise with a €20 million offer. The Spaniard isn’t an international fixture, and after pinging around Ukraine for a spell, he returned to La Liga and might be blooming a bit later, Olivier Giroud-style; he scored 17 goals last year, by far his best total, in 37 matches. That’s not an extraordinary number, and at age 27, he’s probably not going to see a huge increase, but at the price, one gets what one gets.

It does seem a little odd that Arsenal would be in for a second- or third-tier at this moment in time, given that Arsene Wenger has talked about making signings which materially improve the squad; while depth at striker is certainly an issue, Lucas is probably not a player who will put Arsenal at the top of title contention. It is also unclear how much of an improvement a 27-year old newcomer to the Premier League would be as a squad player—he’s clearly better than a Yaya Sanogo, but sliding Theo Walcott or Alexis into the striker position offers more. UPDATE: I wrote that in a fit of pique. No, not that Pique. But, I was silly to do so. He’d be better there than the aforementioned. Sorry!

We will keep you posted with more details as they arrive, naturally.