Arsenal: Lucas Moura accomplishes same as Wilfried Zaha, but cheaper

Arsenal will be scrounging for Alexis Sanchez replacements and while Wilfried Zaha looks good, price is an issue. Enter Lucas Moura.

Arsenal won’t truly be out of the woods until they have overcome the loss of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil. For the record, I don’t think that will be as hard as it sounds. I just think that it’s a matter of proving that the prowess of their names can be replaced by hungry up-and-comers.

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Still, if the idea is to sell Alexis in January, there has to be someone coming in the opposite direction. I love the idea of Wilfried Zaha, but when the prospective figure of £35m hit me, I was reminded that just because Alexis is going for a cut-rate doesn’t mean the rest of the world is too.

Zaha may well be worth that much, but the focus should be on monumental (yes, monumental) changes in the summer along the lines of Nabil Fekir and Leon Goretzka. I don’t think Zaha does more than bridge the gap while providing an interesting competitive figure going forward.

Plus, Zaha will be in the midst of helping Crystal Palace out of the relegation zone, so a sale may not be on the cards.

In steps Lucas Moura. I do believe that everything that I thought Zaha could be, before the price tag hit me in the face like a wet fish, can be replicated in Lucas Moura. The PSG man is not getting the time he wants as a 25 year old (also like Zaha) and with that unlikely to change given the superstar cast the Parisian’s boast, an exit makes sense.

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Especially to somewhere like Arsenal, where he will have half a season of unabated opportunity in the first team of a massive club. It’s hard to ask for much more than that.

Plus, Lucas has proven himself up to the level of PSG. It’s not his fault they decided to spend £200m to replace him with a man who can replace anyone. Lucas is still a quality player with ridiculous speed who could relive his successes with PSG, just at the Emirates.

The man accumulated over 30 goals and 30 assists while in Paris, proving himself to be a creator and a goal scorer and while he certainly isn’t Alexis, he certainly has a lot to prove and a lot of talent to prove it with.

Plus, if he is going to be “bargain priced” as the report from the Metro suggests, then that means he won’t cost £35m and may be closer to, oh, let’s be optimistic here – £25m?

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The idea is to get a player for less than we sell Alexis for. Or at least, that’s what I see the objective as, because then we can invest serious optimism in the potential of a big signing like Fekir in the summer.