Arsene Wenger blows hot and cold with Lucas Perez not his Arsenal 'Goldilocks'

Lucas returned to Arsenal training this week after a recurrence of a thigh injury
Arsenal FC via Getty Images
James Benge9 May 2017

The odds were already stacked against Lucas Perez before he signed for Arsenal.

Before the 28-year-old had even put pen to paper on his contract at the Emirates, Arsene Wenger was fending off suggestions that Lucas had been a “panic buy”, the £17million man arriving as he did after Arsenal claimed just a point from their opening two Premier League games.

It may well be the case that Arsenal were not panicking, though even Wenger admitted the signing was a “gamble”. But from almost his first match at the club, a lonely hour leading the line in a draining 2-1 win over Southampton, there were questions as to where exactly the former Deportivo La Coruna striker fitted in.

Not that Lucas’ quality is to be debated, and there have been more than flashes of excellence during his 21 appearances in an Arsenal shirt.

But first impressions are hard to shift and it is instructive that Arsenal’s first impression of the journeyman Spaniard, whose CV includes such far-flung locales as Karpaty Lviv and PAOK, were that he would not make the grade at the Emirates.

Hence why they turned him down earlier in the transfer window. Everton’s interest forced the Gunners’ hand in late August when an injury to Olivier Giroud left Wenger weighing up the merits of Chuba Akpom and Theo Walcott in central areas.

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Perhaps if Wenger had been aware of how swiftly Alexis Sanchez would settle into a striking role, Lucas might not even have arrived.

Indeed it was Sanchez’s sparkling form as a central attacker, particularly in the early months of the season, that marked the turning point for Lucas’ Emirates career. Amid the trudge towards the campaign’s end it is hard to remember just how impressive the attacking quartet Wenger alighted on in the early months seemed to be, with Alex Iwobi, Mesut Ozil and Walcott a perfectly-formed trident in behind the explosive Chilean.

As more and more of Wenger’s squad recovered their fitness - first Giroud then Danny Welbeck - Lucas struggled with his, damaging his ankle in October then picking up a thigh strain in the FA Cup sixth-round win over Lincoln.

In his absence it became apparent that Lucas would have to feed off his team-mate’s scraps, stepping in either when something desperate was needed (Bournemouth away) or when victory was all but assured (non-League opponents in the FA Cup).

Seven goals and six assists - the former coming at a rate of one every 135 minutes - is a more-than-adequate return, but both player and manager agree that Lucas could have provided much more.

“He’s a top-quality striker and I couldn’t give him the games that he wants and that he deserves, I must confess that,” Wenger said in his press conference today.

With Welbeck, Giroud, Sanchez and Walcott, who briefly led the line against Leicester, all considered options for the central role it is hard to see when that will change. Lucas is now perhaps Arsenal’s fifth-choice centre forward.

His chances of regular game time are little better in wide areas, where Iwobi and Oxlade-Chamberlain swell the roster. It is fair to assume the man whose goals kept Deportivo in the top division last year did not leave his boyhood club for a few games in the EFL Cup.

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Wenger may insist that he wants to keep Lucas at the club next summer – “if he is the manager” – but it is hard to see how he can keep a striker with dreams of the 2018 World Cup satisfied, especially with the possible acquisition of Alexandre Lacazette this summer.

Lucas is not the first player to be caught out by Wenger’s surprising indecisiveness when it comes to centre-forwards. Barring a quartet of cornerstone strikers (Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie) he has often flitted between strikers, never quite settling on the ‘Goldilocks’ attacker who can do it all.

Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

He now has a collection of strikers in Giroud, Welbeck, Sanchez and Lucas that could all theoretically be en vogue in a few weeks’ time or, barring the Chilean, be out in the cold. But a knowledge of how quickly circumstances can change at the Emirates will do little good for the Spaniard, no matter how high the esteem in which his manager holds him.

Both may have expressed their eagerness to find a solution, but it appears much more likely that Lucas’ tenure at Arsenal will not be a lengthy one.

If he does leave in the summer, he can at least rest assured that he has impressed many of those Arsenal supporters who were so doubtful when he first emerged as the solution to the club’s long-term hunt for a high-quality No.9.

Whether he ever truly convinced his manager he could be Arsenal’s star striker is much less clear.

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