Arsenal are demanding £13.4m for Lucas Perez – around £4m less than Everton were willing to pay last summer.
It is all too easy to label Lucas Perez a flop after a disappointing debut season with Arsenal.
Cynics were lining up to lambast the speedy Spaniard when The Gunners triggered his £17 million buyout clause to sign him from Deportivo last summer (BBC), proclaiming that he simply wasn’t good enough to inspire a title charge.
Considering that Perez scored just one Premier League goal and Arsenal finished sixth, their predictions look fairly accurate on initial inspection. However, this ignores the fact that the 28-year-old was criminally and bizarrely underused by Arsene Wenger despite impressing almost every time he was given a chance.
Perez only featured for 265 minutes in the Premier League and that clinical Champions League hat-trick away at Basel was far too quickly swept under the carpet.
Therefore, Everton supporters should not be concerned with Football London reporting that they are set to renew their interest in a striker they were so frustrated to miss out on 12 months ago.
£4m cheaper
Blessed with rapid pace, commendable work-ethic and a clinical finish one-on-one, Perez may not be the dream replacement for Romelu Lukaku but he has the potential to be the 20-goal a season striker Ronald Koeman is searching high and low for.
Furthermore, the fact that Everton could sign Perez for about £4 million cheaper than last summer would make the deal even more impressive. According to The Standard, Arsenal are demanding a fee of £13.4 million – which threatens to scupper Depor’s chances of bringing the A Coruna-born forward home this summer.
Everton have been forced to pay over the odds in their expensive revamp this summer, the likes of Michael Keane and Gylfi Sigurdsson arriving for huge fees.
In comparison, Perez would be an all-too-rare bargain in today’s market.
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