Why Lucas Perez Could Be The Answer To Arsenal’s Scoring Problem?

For some people, Wenger will never have done enough business.

But I don’t buy into that thinking, simply because buying is not the answer to everything. Just like the solution to every problem is not always within the team — a belief forced upon the Arsenal fan by Ivan Gazidis and co. during Arsenal’s lean years immediately after the construction of the Emirates — the answer is not always buying. Sometimes, though, when you are just a few pieces short of filling a jigsaw puzzle, buying can take you places. That is why, as an Arsenal fan, I still brood over Arsene Wenger’s decision not to buy a striker in the summer of 2015. Imagine if Lucas Perez had the season he had last year with Arsenal. Seventeen goals, is that what he scored? And 10 assists. I would have very well settled for that, thank you very much.

In Lucas Perez, Arsenal would have made up for the 10 points it lacked last year to win the Premier League by some distance.

Hello @Arsenal!!! #anewGunnerisintown #BienvenidoLucas ?????? pic.twitter.com/6SITFWjK1Q

— Lucas Pérez (@LP10oficial) August 30, 2016

But Arsenal never brought a striker, with Wenger preferring to bide his time to get the striker that “would improve the team.” One of the results of Wenger’s reluctance to buy was that Arsenal struggled for goals last season. Wenger would have hoped that the team would contribute toward filling that gap left without the second striker, but that did not happen either. With injuries to Welbeck and Cazorla, coupled with tepid performances from Oxlade-Chamberlain and Walcott, Arsenal suffered from a scoring problem last season, which was exacerbated further in the Champions League, with Arsenal managing only one goal — that too from new man Elneny — in two knockout games against Barcelona.

Despite Mesut Ozil notching up key passes and clear-cut chances like picking apples from a tree, Arsenal did not have a man capable of converting them into goals.

So when this summer window opened, Arsenal fans were cautiously hopeful that Wenger would make the striking purchase necessary to strengthen the team. Moreover, running into the final year of his contract, Wenger had to make the moves necessary to consolidate Arsenal’s already flourishing potential and give him perhaps a final chance at winning the Premier League title at Arsenal.

But after protracted sagas involving Leicester’s Jamie Vardy and Lyon’s Alexander Lacazette failed to come to fruition in Arsenal’s favor, Wenger decided to turn his attention to a player whom Arsenal had been scouting for well over a year. Wenger had his eyes on him too and was ready to lap him up in case deals for Lacazette and Vardy fell through.

“It’s very exciting. To play with the best, to compete with the best…. It makes me very happy. It’s a challenge, and if someone had told me at ten years old when I was playing in the streets of La Coruna, I would have thrown them off a bridge, I’d have said ‘you’re crazy.'”

With Perez now at Arsenal, Wenger will look to diversify the team’s attacking options. He gives Arsenal the counter-attacking ability that it was sorely lacking last season. When Arsenal play teams which play possession football, from Bournemouth to Barcelona, Wenger will have the option of using Perez’s pace and scoring ability up front. Moreover, with new signing Granit Xhaka being capable of providing balls from the deep, Wenger might have found just the combination in Arsenal’s spine that its critics said the team needed badly last season.

Arsenal have a big season in front of them, and Lucas Perez could turn out to be just the man Arsenal need to convert its chances.

[Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images]