Arsenal’s bid for Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette has been rejected by the French club, according to reports from ESPN.
Arsenal are rumored to have placed a bid of €48m for the French international striker, but Olympique Lyon confirmed that the bid was only for €35m, something that could not be accepted as the striker is “irreplaceable” for them.
25-year-old Lacazette scored 21 goals in 34 Ligue 1 appearances last season, but yet could not make the French squad for Euro 2016. It means that he will be available immediately for Arsenal if the transfer happens, which is clearly why the North London club has even staged a bid for him.
With Jamie Vardy signing a new deal with Leicester City and Gonzalo Higuain joining Juventus on a 90 million euros deal, Arsenal have had to turn to turn their attention towards Alexandre Lacazette in their quest for a prolific goal scorer.
Lyon have confirmed by issuing a statement that a bid was indeed submitted, but the bid did not match the demands of the club as they value their star player even higher.
The statement read:
“Olympique Lyonnais categorically denies having received an offer of €48 million from Arsenal for the transfer of Alexandre Lacazette as Le Progres claims in this morning’s edition.
“The club regrets once again that Le Progres did not bother to contact the club before publishing this false information which creates confusion on the day that the [ownership] group, on the stock exchange, publishes its annual turnover of €218.1 million, up 111 percent compared to 2014/2015.
“The reality is that Arsenal formulated an offer of €35 million which Olympique Lyonnais did not follow up on for one reason only: OL will keep Alexandre Lacazette who is irreplaceable and who is one of the main leaders of Bruno Genesio’s squad.”
Lacazette was the top scorer of Ligue 1 in 2014-15 and has ever since been linked with Arsenal but it is only now that an official bid has been submitted.
Arsenal are looking to make their 4th signing of the window, after Granit Xhaka, Takuma Asano and Rob Holding.
With Granit Xhaka being the only ‘big name’ and ‘established” signing, and with injuries and Euro fatigue taking the toll on the squad, Arsenal are clearly in need of more established players if they are to go into this season with confidence. Needless to say, signing a striker must be a top priority right now.
