Lucas Perez has flown home to give a goodbye press conference to his boyhood club, Deportivo La Coruña, and expressed his disbelief at playing for Arsenal.

The Gunners’ £17m striker took the opportunity during the international break to say goodbye to Deportivo and admitted that if someone had told him he’d be playing for Arsenal 10 years ago, he would have ‘thrown them off a bridge’. Bit extreme but I admire his passion I guess.

“It’s very exciting,” Lucas said.

“To play with the best, to compete with the best… It makes me very happy,

“It’s a challenge that if someone had told me at ten years old when I was playing in the streets of La Coruña, I would have thrown them off a bridge, I’d have said ‘you’re crazy’.

“Moving to the Premier League is something I will remember for all my life,

“I keep every photo people send me, everything that comes out in the press. It’s a source of price that Deportivo can rebuild with the money they got for me.”

He added, “When you arrive in a city of 12 million people it scares you!” 

“Being from [the small town of] Monelos, it is a little bit scary.

“For me Deportivo will always be my family. There’s a Deportivo fan in London for sure.”

Joking aside, it’s always brilliant when new players arrive and seem genuinely over the moon with the move. It proves that Arsenal have held onto their reputation as one of the best clubs in the world, despite what the media now claims.

Lucas seems like a really passionate player (to put it lightly) and that’s something we always need at the club. Let’s hope that passion translates to performances on the pitch and in 10 more years he can be proud of his time in north London.