Former Arsenal striker, Lucas Perez, paid part of his own transfer fee so he could re-sign for Deportivo la Coruna, and scored a brace in his first game back.
When Arsenal signed Lucas Perez for Deportivo La Coruna, he was a club legend for them.
They even offered him the longest deal in their history to get him to stay but, alas, he was swayed by the big lights of London.
Quite why Arsene Wenger brought him to the club when he clearly wasn’t a fan of his, has never been clear.
Lucas seemed to do well whenever he got a chance, and left Arsenal with seven goals and five assists from just 948 minutes of action (that’s a goal or assist every 79 minutes from a player who only averaged 45 minutes per game.)
If Wenger didn’t fancy him that much, Unai Emery liked him even less and shipped him off to West Ham for €4.4m when he returned from a loan spell with his former club.
Six goals in 19 games (712 minutes) was disappointing for all parties and just a season later, Lucas was on his way again, this time to Alaves (62 appearances, 15 goals, 9 assists).
Two years later, Lucas was playing for Elche (19 appearances, 2 goals, 1 assist) before a move to Cadiz (31 appearances, 8 goals, 2 assists) in January 2022.
Now, he is back at Deportivo for a reported fee of €1,000,000, around half of which Lucas is paying himself.
Cadiz themselves only paid €200,000 for him in 2022.
Deportivo, who used to play in La Liga before Lucas left, now play in the Spanish third tier.
Making his most recent debut for them, Lucas scored a brace against Primera Federacion, bringing his tally for the season to six goals from 801 minutes across 16 games.
Lucas turned 34 in September and has signed an 18-month contract until the summer of 2024.
At the national team level, Lucas represented Spain in the U-19, U-20 and U-21 teams, but never earned a senior cap.
Despite that, he was called up several times by La Roja coaches, but was unable to earn a cap due to several factors such as injuries or the competition of other players who were in better form.