Lucas Perez could be set to chase Arsenal after a gesture from Arsene Wenger had left him furiously.
The Spanish striker was intended as a smart signature for the Gunners in 2016. After a brilliant 17-goal season for Deportivo La Coruna, Perez arrived at the Emirates Stadium for a fee of £ 17 million.
But it quickly turned into a nightmare for the attacker, who only scored one Premier League goal in front of the side of Noord -Londs, although there was still six times on the score sheet in cup matches.
While fighting with Alexandre Lacazette and Olivier Giroud for a position in the Arsenal attack, Perez was pushed even further in the pecking order in January after the signing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of Borussia Dortmund.
But things were quickly set to get even worse when Perez saw his number nine shirt stripped of him and handed it to Lacazette, a decision that made the Spaniard furious.
Speaking with La Voz de Galicia at the time, he said: “I feel cheated. In February I was not allowed to leave for a move to China with the promise that I would play more and then I had fewer opportunities. But the shirt number is an ugly gesture.
“During our trip for the season, Lacazette asked the boss and he accepted it. I was told alone afterwards. Last year [Wenger] He told me that he understood why I was upset. I think this season things will get worse, so help me. “
“Because I was a professional football player, I felt happiest in Deportivo, surrounded by my family and my friends,” he added. “Put yourself in my place.
“I know I have opportunities to play for the national team and at the World Cup. But I have to play and I have to be happy for that. That's why I want to go back to Coruna. Arsenal is not doing well with me.
“To take the shirt number without telling me and giving it to a companion – it seems to me that it is the last drop. I cannot continue this way. I have given everything, but that is not answered, so I can no longer stand it. I want to leave and be happy.”
Perez eventually got his wish from an exit from the Emirates Stadium when he added to the former Side Deportivo again and scored nine goals during the campaign. But he would quickly return to the Premier League with a relocation of £ 4 million to West Ham, where Arsenal lost around £ 13 million to his signing within the room of two years.
The career of Perez has become a travel man since he had counted Alavez, Elche, Cadiz among his employers, while also enjoying a fourth spell with Deportivo while helping the side to promote back to the second level of Spanish football last season.
He left the club again in January after he asked to leave for “personal reasons”. The now 36-year-old appeared surprisingly on PSV a few weeks later during a free transfer and is now confronted with an uncomfortable reunion with his former club Arsenal in the Champions League.
Of course the man in the dugout has now changed with Mikel Arteta at the helm. Fortunately for Arsenal, Perez will be banned to take the field against his former employers with PSV who missed the Squad Deadline to register him for the Champions League.
But there is no doubt that he will do everything he can do to give his new teammates the Lowdown on the Gunners on the Training Pitch. And he will keep his fingers crossed that PSV can find a way to a striking victory of the Champions League after the way he was treated by Arsenal.
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