Arsenal: £57 million Alexandre Lacazette simply what the market demands

Lyon’s President Jean-Michel Aulas has stated that Arsenal will have to meet their £57 million valuation of Alexandre Lacazette if they want to sign him. While that may seem steep, it is just what the market demands at this time.

Arsenal are on the search for a striker. Unfortunately, it is going to be an expensive one, something that Arsene Wenger has infamously avoided like Tottenham Hotspur and Premier League titles!

Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that he is willing to do the unusual and splash the cash, with Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette the most prominent link to North London thus far with the chances of a sensational move for Kylian Mbappe slipping after an £87 million offer was rejected by Monaco.

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However, while Lacazette will not cost the extortionate, inordinate amount that Mbappe will, that does not mean that he will come cheap. In fact, amid intense rumours that the Gunners have entered talks with Lyon regarding a possible move for Lacazette, their president, Jean-Michel Aulas, has since publicly stated that it will take a fee in the region of Atletico Madrid’s failed offer, because of a transfer embargo, to prize their star striker away:

"“Everyone knows that Atletico’s offer was €53million plus €12m in bonuses. That makes €65million (£57m). As the Arsenal directors well know, it will be in that range. The price for a player who scores 25-30 goals every year – sometimes more than 30 – is at least that. But frankly, I haven’t yet thought about Arsenal for now because I thought that Alexandre was going to stay because the deal with Atletico fell through.”"

That may seem like a rather steep price for a player who has no experience in the Spanish, Italian or English leagues, is yet to fully prove himself on the European level, either in the Champions League or for France, and is already 26 and seems to have reached his peak.

However, while all those concerns are valid ones that deserve to be discussed and aired, unfortunately, football, and the transfer market, in particular, is a business, a scrambled, messy ball of economics, in which money is the boss, and intuition, measured, considered thinking, and loyalty are hard to come by.

The market forces are such that a player who has scored over 20 league goals in three consecutive campaigns, including 28 in just 28 starts last season, is priced at the £50-60 million mark. That may seem ridiculous, incredible, unbelievable. But it is simple supply and demand.

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There is a whole lot of demand for players who can consistently score goals at the rate that Lacazette can. There is also very little supply. That is why his price as such. Let’s hope that Wenger is willing to cough up what is necessary.

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