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Striker set to arrive in London to undergo Arsenal medical – reports

By mac14 on August 25, 2016

It looks like Arsenal are about to get a new striker as Goal are one of several sources who are reporting that Lucas Perez will arrive in London on Friday to undergo his medical after we agreed a £17m with Deportivo La Coruna.

The story has progressed quickly over the past 24 hours with the Telegraph reporting that Arsenal had hijacked Everton’s move for the striker with officials over in Spain today trying to thrash out a deal.

We then saw reports this afternoon from local Radio Coruna via Cadena SER claiming that Deportivo had rejected our offer as Arsenal wanted to pay the 27-year-old’s £17m release clause over two installments.

However, it looks as though we’ve agreed to pay the whole fee up front as Goal now claim that a deal has been agreed and Perez will fly-in to London with his agent, Rodrigo Fernandes, on Friday morning to undergo his medical and finalise his move to the Emirates.

The report indicates that Greek outfit POAK will receive around £5m of the transfer fee due to a sell-on clause included in his sale to Deportivo last summer.

The BBC have also confirmed that we’ve got a deal agreed to sign Perez so it unless there are any last minute complications, it looks as though we’ve finally got a new striker.

Obviously Perez isn’t the marquee name we’ve been hoping for but he scored 19 goals and provided 11 assists last season so he will certainly bring an added threat in the final third.

The Spaniard is pacey and likes to make runs behind the opposition defence so he’ll offer something different to Olivier Giroud and this could turn out to be a very shrewd piece of business by Arsene.

The fact is no ‘big name’ strikers were available this summer and non-elite strikers like Lacazette were being valued at crazy money, so Wenger has done the right thing and taken a speculative punt on a decent striker.

MORE: Arsene ‘approves’ £51m deal to sign world class attacker

Who’s to say that Lacazette would have been a success here in England and we’d be buggered if we risked £50m on him. At least now we’ve minimized any potential losses and Perez has all the attributes to be a hit if he settles.