This summer Alexandre Lacazette’s contract will have just one year left and it looks like Arsenal will be getting rid of him.
Lacazette is out of contract in 2022 and there is no talk of offering him a new one with Arsenal eyeing up a number of young strikers and the chance to clear Lacazette’s inflated wages from the books.
Also on this page:
- Alexandre Lacazette contract details
- Roma wanted Lacazette last summer but wouldn’t make reasonable bid
- Arteta: We haven’t started contract talks with Lacazette
- Alexandre Lacazette unhappy with Arteta plans, wants Atletico Madrid move
Football.London report that Arsenal are likely to be open to letting the likes of Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah leave the club this summer. Both players have contracts lasting until 2022, meaning they’ll enter their final year in the upcoming window.
Alexandre Lacazette’s contract details
Alexandre Lacazette signed for Arsenal in 2017 from Lyon for a fee of £47.7m.
He signed his Arsenal contract on 5 July 2017.
Alexandre Lacazette’ contract, which sees him earn £182,000-per-week (£9.46m-per-year), will expire on 30 June 2022.
Roma wanted Lacazette last summer but wouldn’t make reasonable bid
In the summer of 2020, Arsenal reportedly turned down a late offer from Roma for Alexandre Lacazette as they didn’t believe it was high enough.
Alexandre Lacazette didn’t have a great 19/20 season and the patience of Arsenal fans seemed to be wearing very thin with the forward last summer.
10 goals in 27 appearances so far in 20/21 only tells part of the 29-year-old’s Arsenal story. His form and general performances were poor for large parts of the season, prompting calls from some sections of the Arsenal fanbase for him to be sold.
Step forward Roma who are still said to be interested in Lacazette and could move for him this summer after missing out on him in 2020.
O Jogo in Portugal were reporting on The Athletics’ piece from late September.
Lacazette has scored a total of 58 goals, with 28 assists, in 154 games for Arsenal. To compare, Olivier Giroud scored 105, with 41 assists, in 253 games.
When you look at it in terms of goals and assists per minutes played, Giroud grabbed a goal or assist every 110 minutes.
For Lacazette, it’s one every 121 minutes.
Juventus and Atletico Madrid are also said to hold an interest in Lacazette.
Arteta: We haven’t started contract talks with Lacazette
In September, Mikel Arteta said the club aren’t in contract negotiations with Alexandre Lacazette, as they’re focusing on their business in the transfer market.
Speaking after the West Ham match in September, Mikel Arteta confirmed Arsenal weren’t yet in contract talks with Alexandre Lacazette.
Lacazette scored his second goal of the season on the day, helping Arsenal to a 2-1 win. But with two years left on his contract at that point, his future is still uncertain in the latter stages of the transfer window.
“At the moment, we haven’t started any negotiations,” Arteta said. “We have a lot of things still to do in this market and at the moment we are focusing on those things.
“[Lacazette is] a player I’m really happy with. I think we’ve shown him a lot of faith since I arrived here. But we cannot stop any speculation.”
Obviously, Arsenal handed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang a contract extension around the same time as these comments were made. But you could argue that was a much higher priority situation than Lacazette’s.
Aubameyang was in the final year of his deal as the club captain. He was drawing interest from the likes of Barcelona and scored 29 goals last season, including the winner in the FA Cup final. With all due respect, none of those things are true of Lacazette.
Arteta will still want some security with the striker. Whether that’s selling and replacing him, signing him up to an extension or agreeing that he’ll stay one more year without a new deal, we don’t know yet.
It’s just not the focus right now, with so much else going on. I think that’s fair enough.
Alexandre Lacazette unhappy with Arteta plans, wants Atletico Madrid move
At the start of August, it was claimed that Alexandre Lacazette was unhappy with Mikel Arteta’s plans to build his team around his very good friend, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and wanted to Atletico Madrid in a huff, so how is that story developing?
There was, of course, every chance that Arsenal could sell Alexandre Lacazette last summer as he was one of only a few players at the club with a decent resale value, but I very much doubt the forward threw a strop quite in the way it was being portrayed.
The Daily Star reported Arsenal would ask £30m for the Frenchman who was Arsenal’s Player of the Season in 18/19.
The Star and the Mirror, which picked the story up from the Star, went on to claim Lacazette is unhappy at playing second fiddle to Auba which, to be fair, is a little like being unhappy you’re in the same team as Lionel Messi.
It just doesn’t make sense.
They story, however, did not go away. Atletico Madrid were willing to offer Arsenal one of three players, none of whom was Thomas Partey, in order to land Lacazette. A report in Spain said that a swap deal was the only way the Spaniards could make this happen
Both English publications claimed that Lacazette was unhappy at being on the bench so often.
Overall, he did play around 700 fewer league minutes in the 19/20 season compared to the year before (when he scored 13 goals and assisted 10).
19/20 and Lacazette scored 10 and assisted six in the league.
Lacazette league minutes at Arsenal
- 17/18 – 2,211
- 18/19 – 2,502
- 19/20 – 1,879
Lacazette total minutes at Arsenal
- 17/18 – 2,758
- 18/19 – 3,327
- 19/20 – 2,581
As you can see, he did indeed play far fewer league minutes last season but overall, he almost matched his total for his first season at the club.
Lacazette played a total of 39 games in all competitions in the 19/20 season, starting 30 of them. He was subbed off 18 times, three fewer than under Arsene Wenger who also handed him 39 games (33 starts).
Both English publications also stated that “the France international was on the bench until Eddie Nketiah’s suspension allowed him back into the side,” which is simply not true. Nketiah was sent off against Leicester, four minutes after coming off the bench in a game Lacazette started.
Laca was on the bench for the game against Wolves before that, but at that point many in the team were being rotated and Lacazette was, on average, starting every other game.
In total, from his 30 Premier League appearances he started 22.
He did only play the full 90 10 times in the league, but that’s been an issue since Arsene Wenger was at the club. Six of his 90s this season, however, came under Arteta.
The truth of the matter is likely a lot less dramatic than the tabloids are making out. Shocking, I know.
Laca has wanted to play for Atletico Madrid for years and they’ve wanted him on and off throughout that period too.
We all know had it not been for their transfer ban he would have moved there instead of to Arsenal in 2017.
Arsenal, meanwhile, need money and also have Eddie Nketiah and Gabriel Martinelli at the club.
Mikel Arteta has said that he doesn’t want to lose Lacazette, but the board have already shown with Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Mesut Ozil that they make the final decisions.
I would be very surprised indeed if this has anything at all to do with Auba’s star status at the club given how close the two players are.