Arsenal: Better luck next year with Thomas Lemar

Arsenal almost looked ready to land Thomas Lemar even before Alexandre Lacazette, but now it’s looking like Monaco’s resilience wasn’t just a charade.

Arsenal had a clear directive going into the summer and Arsene Wenger wasted no time throwing around big-buck bids like he’s been doing it his entire life. Reports of him levying monstrous bids for Kylian Mbappe were perhaps the most surprising, but we never really expected to land him.

Seeing his bids for Alexandre Lacazette and Thomas Lemar, however, were much more worth following. Especially seeing as how Lacazette could now be announced at literally any moment (I can’t refresh Arsenal’s twitter page fast enough).

Lemar looked to be on the same path. Reports of him putting off Monaco talks in the hopes of going to the red side of North London gave us hope, followed by reports of a £31m bid. Of course, that bid was stomped into the dirt by Monaco and it’s easy to see why. If an inferior Bernardo Silva cost Manchester City £43m, why would a superior Lemar cost less?

So then the rumors indicated that Lemar would cost something like £50m, as Monaco were insistent that they didn’t want to sell him. But money usually talks and that price tag was completely reasonable using Silva as a means of measurement.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

Now, however, we are finding out that Monaco might have been very serious about not wanting to sell Lemar. So serious that they put on their serious face long ago and now that they have supposedly laid out their new asking price, their is no doubting their new serious face. Even given the history of Monaco being sellers.

The new asking price is supposedly an astounding £80m. Up until this point, any asking price was met with my non-negotiable ‘yeah sure, just pay the man.’ But this gave me pause. Mostly because, even in today’s standards, it is wholly unreasonable. Nobody is going to pay that for Lemar and, unfortunately, that’s the point.

Wenger has always said if it is the right player, price does not matter as much, but this has to be a different case. Lemar is clearly the right player, but if they aren’t going to sell, they just aren’t going to sell.

Maybe next year, Arsenal will learn their lesson and wrap up a Monaco transfer before anyone else can, which might means announcing the deal in like… March.

The best that can happen is we stay in touch with Lemar and come back next year. Hopefully at which point Monaco will fall off the Ligue 1 charts (unlikely) and the Gunners will be back in the Champions League.

Next: 3 Players Who Will Fall In Love With Alexandre Lacazette

Plus, come next year, Lemar will have two years left on his deal, which is often a crunch time for players to either leave or stay. Let’s hope he chooses the former.

Home/Arsenal Transfer Rumours