Arsenal remain interested in Anderlecht striker Romelu Lukaku, but talk of an imminent transfer is wide of the mark. Speculation emanating from the English media this week had claimed that a deal was all but done.
Lukaku has been subject of Arsenal’s interest for a number of seasons, with his rapid and consistent goal scoring rate for Anderlecht’s B team initially attracting interest. Low level scouts made checks on the striker during his first season in the youth side, where he scored 21 goals in 88 matches.
Interest began to grow when Romelu made his first team debut, but his father, Roger, warned off potential suitors. The Lukaku family agreed they wouldn’t consider a transfer until he had completed his schooling, in late 2011. Subsequently, talk of a deal went cold.
Arsenal remain keen on the powerful front-man, but a move to Chelsea sooner rather than later is the general feeling in Belgium. The Blues have previously made contact with Anderlecht and are ready to meet the large price tag they’ve slapped on their price asset. The influence of Didier Drogba has also been telling. The Ivorian sent Romelu a replica shirt earlier this year, in which he posed for pictures in during a photo-shoot.
The powerful, all action and clinical striker is valued at around €18 million euros; a dramatic hike on the initial €3 million The Gunners were prepared to pay a year ago. It seems certain Lukaku will be one of the stars of the future, but if his future does lay in London, it’s almost certainly in the West, and not the North.
Great reporting as usual, Jamie
These fees are ruining the development of players. If Arsenal don’t snap up these players before they play first team football, a couple goals from a teenager and they are worth 20 million.
Then arsenal should stop being so tight with there 1 million profit and start spending it.
Lukaku is fantastic, we shouldn’t miss out on him.
Europe’s Undiscovered Gems (Pastore, de Gea, Lukaku)
http://www.therealarsenal.com/?p=135
Kyle…WHAT!?!?! lol. How are any of those 3 undiscovered gems?
Not according to Anderlecht.Arsenal want both brothers and the Lukaku family are happy about that as they want them to stay together.A fee has been talked about and its £13million plus add ons…
He is an exciting prospect but there is no guarantee that he will fulfil his potential. As we have seen with the 1st team squad, young players do not incrementally improve with age and game time. Players like Clichy, Song, Diaby and Walcott have not really improved to the level expected. Player progress is not a straight-line graph whereby they peak at 28. I am always sceptical when big money is spent on hyped-up young players – I would rather us spend 18m on a 24 year old striker who ends up scoring 15 goals for 6 years than spend it on an 18 year old who might one day score 40 in a season but not in the next year or two.
Steve: Clichy is number 2 for France, Song is a top defensive midfielder, Diaby starts for France and Walcott was our best player until he turned his ankle. None of these players is in league with Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney, Villa or Fabregas but they are excellent none the less. Please appreciate them.
you also have to look at their age
Messi and Ronaldo are exceptional talent and I rate Fabregas just as good as them
but other players are just good players
What again lol? So Diaby has not turned into atlas a 2 million pound player? Alex Song has not repaid the 1 million pound investment? Clichy is not worth 650,000 pounds and Walcott who has already hit for a hat trick for England and is not even to his best position yet is not worth the 9 million pound fee?
I might understand the last one the most but to say Daiby, Clichy and especially Song have not developed is just stupid.
I want to know how you guys rate Afobe?
We have Chamak, B52 and Van persie as our current target man and they can do the job for the next 3-4 years
But we need someone to help out B52 in the future and I want to know how many of you think Afobe can break into Arsenal first team?
His form for the reserves and England U19s show his talent and I personally will take Afobe over Lukaku
Rather than spending 15-20 million on Lukaku and keeping him on the bench for a couple of years I would rather spend Afobe out on loan in january and maybe a year long loan next year and then slowly bring him into the first team
We will not get this kid on the cheap.
Well, the truth is that he is too good for our recent standards.Lukaku is not injury prone and he is tall, strong and most importantly a clinical finisher.IT is really obvious that he is going to Chelsea.We cant compete for the really exceptional talents with the big boys.
Really because we didn’t beat the other big clubs out for Diaby, Walcott and Ramsey in recent years?
we need a striker because for the last couple years we havent looked like scoring in big games,but 1 month at out training camp this kidwillforget how to shoot and becomea backheel princess like the rest of them lol
Quick get bendtner to send a signed shirt out to him, we still have a chance
Agree Andy, we also got welly silva
I think there’s every chance of us signing one, or both of, the Lukakus.
They are managed by their father who will have their best interests at heart. Most agents would sell them off to the highest bidder (Chelsea/Man City/Real Madrid) but their father will push for them to go to the right club rather than the richest one. If he’s smart he will recognise Arsenal is probably the best place there is for his sons to develop; we care about promoting youth and our track record is incredibly strong.
Also, anybody who says we can’t or won’t pay what he’s worth is completely, utterly wrong. When it comes to young players we pay better than anybody else. We signed Walcott and Ramsey because we were willing to pay for their huge potential, while other big clubs always look to prize those kind of gems away from lower league clubs on the cheap.
We don’t pay extortionate fees of £20m, £30m because there’s absolutely no value to that approach. If the player fails and we sell him on we lose money. If he’s a success and helps us to trophies it’s still unlikely to prove a worthy investment that pays for itself, especially when you take the astronomical wages such a player would demand. By comparison, signing a youngster with enormous potential for £12m is a pretty low-risk investment.
“We don’t pay extortionate fees of £20m, £30m because there’s absolutely no value to that approach.”
it is never an extortionate fee if that is what the market is willing to pay – and in this case chelsea (and probably some other teams) will be willing to pay that much.
he scored 121 goals in 88 matches not 21
Vela has been a bit disappointed. His link up play and overall play is not Arsenal standard but his finishing is top class. I believe it’s down to game time and he will improve but as soon as Bentner or RVP return they will play ahead of him. Afobe is another striker who is ahead of his development schedule. He just stepped up to reserve level but yet he is looking very comfortable. I hope Afobe proves to us that we don’t need to buy another one.
Vela’s not a target man its simple as that
He’s finishing ability is second to none in our side and there’s nothing wrong with his linkup play
He cant hold the ball up or get on the end of crosses
If we were playing 4-4-2 then he would have really come into his own
I think he can play as a LW and maybe do what Villa did for Spain in the WC when he was playing on the left
Carlos Vela will be the next player that everyone is completely wrong about. The problem is everyone expects these players to be world class at 20 years old. If you can not see Vela’s obvious talent then there is something wrong. I personally am as excited about Vela as I am about any other young player we have. Lets say Wilshere or Ramsey did not reach there potential, you can find top talent in those positions for less money because there game is made more by judgment of the eye rather than easy to see on paper. You can’t really snag a world class forward on the cheap because it shows on paper so everyone knows about them. That is why Vela is huge to our future success.
buy now! dont waste ur time wenger…
i think Vela is more like a michael owen kinda player…. not a target man like chamakh or rvp or b52. he is more like a finisher and he’s really good at it.
and i think Afobe will make it at arsenal. after i’ve read everything here i can understand that he’s very highly rated by the staff. we must not forget that he was once linked with barca but he stayed with us. and everytime he has proved his worth till now. so i think the boy has a future here.
I think Vela is fine in the middle. He is just young. Vela will not be able to be a loan striker for a bad team but with players like Fabregas, Wilshere, Ramsey, etc he is perfect. He has the top talent you need but he needs time to develop fully.
Lukaku is chelsea bound,that is if there are interested in him.We cannot win a biding war with them,if we bought Lukaku,we wont declare a profit,which will then make nonsence of what we are,a going concern.A limited liability company
Any Arsenal fan who believes we would get him should pass the weed.
the time he turns 18 i swear Madrid and Chelsea would bring hell on earth
I know we cant match them when it comes to wages and maybe even transfer fees
BUT there’s a third thing that most people forget and that’s players choice
Fabregas is wanted by everyteam in the world but he only wants to go to barca and it could be the same for Lukaku brothers
he might think he has a better chance of getting game time here than at Chelsea or Madrid
why can’t we just buy benzema ? that guy is the perfect replacement for henry …
Because he’s a chav. And Wenger has strict rules about a players personality as well as their on-field ability.
Am i the only one who doesnt believe Lukaku is 18 i personally think he might be older.
We dont need him we got jay thomas coming through.
As for benik afobe sorry guys i just cant see him breaking through.
There are too many quality strikers ahead of him.
@John
He is 18, he can’t really lie because his father was a big enough name footballer when he was born.
I thought that at first but he is born in Belgium so no worries about that.
This isn’t a story.
To Texas Gooner. Playing for France or England doesn’t mean anything. Clichy, Diaby and Walcott are not top class players despite looking promising at 18. Also, when everybody is fit those 3 would not play for their countries, countries whose footballing reputation has taken a battering in the last few years. Song has improved from a pub player to a competent player. His improvement has been immense but it should not disguise the fact that he is still not a top player.
Players like Clichy, Walcott, Diaby, Denilson, Eboue and Song have not improved as much as they should have done. They are not 18 year old kids anymore, they should be ready. Also, answer me this – at what point does a player cross the line from inexperienced to incompetent? At the age of 22? 23? 24? After 50 games? 100? 150? At a certain point you have to accept that these players are either not going to improve, or were never any good in the first place. The more I watch these Arsenal players, the more I am suspicious of their talents. There has been little discernible progress – I don’t think Man U or Chelsea have improved as such in the last 2 years yet we are still a long way behind them.
Steve,
You’ve got to be kidding, right? It’s this kind of stupidity about our players or straight bias against the club whipping boys that makes the Arsenal-fandom somewhat patheitic and rediculous at times.
“Song is not a top player.” Alex Song was the best player at the ACN as a 21 year old. He is in the top 5 d-mid players in the premiership.
Also, you say Diaby wouldn’t play for his country if everyone was fit. You are speaking in tongues if you think Diaby isn’t Blanc’s first choice center midfielder for France. At present, Nasri and Gourcuff are fighting it out for the other central spot in the team, but Diaby has started pretty much every match for Frace since the beginning of the WC. The new generation of French football is officially here after the fiasco this summer, and, despite your aversion to facts, Diaby looks to be at the center of it.
Also, Steve, explain to me how a group of 19-24 year olds who consistently qualify for the Champions Leauge, and have made at least the quarterfinals throughout their years as young pros can be rated “incompetent” or “never any good in the first place”. Do you really rate consistent qualification for the CL and consistent progress to the latter rounds as so meaningless a sign of quality? Really dude…really?
Also, dude explain this magical little turn of logic of yours: “[Song’s] improvement has been immense.” And then, literally (and laughably) in the very next sentence: “players like Song (and the others) have not improved as much as they should have done.”
So let me get this straight. Song’s improvement has been immense, however, immense improve does not meet with your expectations.
Let me ask you this, is it only the players that you dislike for whom “immense improvement” is unsatisfactory or is “immense improvement” simply not enough for you regardless of how you rate the player.
This guy is embarrassing lol. Can not even argue with steve. When someone is that wrong about everything then there is no point.
Can’t we just give our own english lads a chance??
this site harps on about afobe, aneke, JET week in week out yet the arsenal coaches (probably wenger) clearly prefer foreigners to english.
there is something called experince and patience
if you have followed Wilshere since he was 16..you would know by now Chuks and Afobe would be First team soon
perhaps because wenger doesn’t find them good enough yet to play in the first team?
why should he give players a chance in the first team, only based on the merit that they are english?
So we should just throw in a few good reserve players because they are english? Logical. There are plenty of english teams you can support. Try Aston Villa who is the best of those. Maybe spurs count as well even though their best players are not english.
How can you say Clichy has not developed as well as he should?
Two seasons ago many people were saying he was already the best left-back in the Premiership. Now he has maybe lost form but I believe he is getting much less cover than he did. He is however a world-class player – though possibly not as good as Gibbs is going to be.
he plays for france and he’s very good
he comes back here and its doom and gloom
I think his performance is slightly due to the new formation and arshavin as his first line of defense
4-2-3-1 is helping a bit but Clichy does need to pick and do what all great fullbacks do which is bomb forward and put opposition wingers and fullbacks on their back foot
“Clichy is no.2 for France..”
lol thats made my day!
I would much prefer to give JET a chance.
Everyone says this until they play for the first team and don’t score 25 goals then everyone talks shit about them
CLICHY is an average left back who has poor positioning.
SONG is an above average defensive midfielder who gets forward at the expense of defensive duties.
DIABY is profligate with passes and too many moves break down with him, I hope he is sold.
WALCOTT has shown incredible flashes of form, but has been injury prone, and we await to see if he can fulfill his potential.
NONE of the above can yet be called top class.
Finally, someone who can actually see what’s really good.
hahaha, arsenal were seriously considering bidding 3 frikkin millions for this guy? are they crazy?
Why would arsenal humiliate themselves by putting up such a lowball bid? embarassing.
It would be like asking to buy a 100 inch LCD tv for 10 pounds.
I dont normally comment though I love the site. Great job J
Im not saying the kid will sign for Arsenal or that we would spend the money on him and his brother. It clearly isnt in our “DNA” to drop that kind of money. But to think that Chelsea are going to spend that kind of money on him is maybe even more far fetched than we would. Look, Roman hasnt spent the kind of money recently at Chelsea then he did. In fact, he keeps cutting where he can. Their transfer budget, recently, hasnt been much greater than ours, in terms of expenditures. And the fact that the 25 man roster comes into play basically kills their chances of signing him. The same goes for City and Madrid. Arsenal have done a great job in giving themselves flexibility in the transfer market. They in fact have the money to buy the kid, and his brother, and to give both of them first team places if that means clinching the deal. I dont believe the Drogba factor will come into play as I dont believe DD will be around much longer anyway. So to think we are not atleast co-favorites to sign the guy, seems to be sort of ludicrous. Every time I read a transfer rumor with Chelseas name on it, or Utd, or Liverpool, I sort of laugh. They dont have the money, means, or flexibility to pull off deals. And in Chelseas case, they have a very good manager, who does happen to have a reputation for not playing young players. So if Lukaku is smart, he will have to keep all of this in mind.
But a future of Walcott, Lukaku, Wellington, Aneke, Wilshere, and Afobe, let alone Nasri and Diaby, in the attacking positions, should make us really pursue this deal as far as we can.
loving the new look of the site.. havent been on for a while..
the way i see it.. Lukaku could be the new drogba.. we have seen what drogba can do isit worth taking the risk on not signing this guy!?
its obvious we need a striker, bendtner and rvp are constantly injured, why not add this guy, it cant hurt? we have the money..
j u mean he scored 121 goals in 88 matches ot 21
Repeating transfer spec as fact, poor show.
Wow, there are some serious tools on here posting shite
KC – you sort of back up my point when you state that 2 years ago Song was the ‘best’ defensive midfielder in a relatively poor tournament yet he didn’t play for Cameroon in this year’s World Cup. You can talk politics all you want but the truth is on the pitch and Song wasn’t on it. As a 21 year old he looked promising, yet as a 23 year old he didn’t play. I stated that he improved from pub-player to competent which IS an immense improvement but clearly not enough to challenge for the title. I fail to see how you can misunderstand my point. It is not enough of an improvement because we have not won a trophy – his improvement has filled the gap of say, Flamini leaving but we won nothing with Flamini (who also improved but again, clearly not enough) in the side either.
Diaby has played under Blanc yes but is he better than Toulalan and Diarra? In my opinion, no. By the way – Diarra missed the World Cup with injury, hence Diaby playing every game and Toulalan is banned at the moment. Also, tell me where Diaby’s BEST position is on the pitch, and don’t give me garbage about ‘centre midfield’ – I want a specific tactical position. As a playmaker? As a shuttler? As a holder? Left midfield in a flat 4? Second striker? He’s played in all of those positions without convincing, and never has he in my memory had 3 good games in a row.
I don’t deny that the set of lads are talented – but have they got enough talent? As I said, Man U and Chelsea haven’t improved in the last 2 years in my opinion yet we are still behind them. We still concede set piece and late goals. We lost games in pairs last season which we’ve carried on this. Where is the progress? Where is the breakthrough, the tipping point? My question is at what point do you give up on these players? 3 years ago I was excited as anyone at the Carling Cup performances. But that was 3 years ago – again, when do we say that enough is enough, the likes of Eboue, Diaby, Song, Denilson, Walcott etc will never be part of a title winning side? One more year? 50 more games?
When you question whether I ‘like’ a player – I don’t have anything against players, they represent Arsenal Football Club. All I care about is whether they are good footballers that can challenge for the title. Needless to say, I have doubts about several of the squad – they themselves have even admitted that youth/inexperience is no longer an excuse for not winning, so I’m assuming it’s lack of talent (mental, physical and technical).
I swear, i don’t think there are very many Arsenal fans on hear by how people talk. They think every Arsenal player is horrible and we should sign a whole new squad.
I have heard on hear now… “Song, Diaby, Walcott, Clichy, Bendtner, Vela, Eboue, Sagna, Almunia, Fabianski, Denilson, Nasri, Arshavin, are all horrible.” I get if you think one or 2 things are wrong but common people.
Edit… “Come on people”
I’d be interested to hear what Wenger thinks of that Traore fella at FC Cluj,the giant ivorian striker,I think he looks the nuts,the perfect type of player to help compliment the finesse players around him,love to see how John Terry would try and cope with him!