Daily Times

Lyon has rejected Arsenal’s €35 million offer for Alexander Lacazette and have insisted that their star striker is not for sale.

Le Progres reported that Arsenal had offered €48 million for Lacazette but the ligue 1 club came out and said that the bid was only of €35 million.

Lyon said that Lacazette is “irreplaceable” following the offer of Arsenal.

Lyon stated “Olympique Lyonnais categorically denies having received an offer of €48 million from Arsenal for the transfer of Alexandre Lacazette as Le Progres claims in this morning’s edition.

“The club regrets once again that Le Progres did not bother to contact the club before publishing this false information which creates confusion on the day that the [ownership] group, on the stock exchange, publishes its annual turnover of €218.1 million, up 111 percent compared to 2014/2015.

“The reality is that Arsenal formulated an offer of €35 million which Olympique Lyonnais did not follow up on for one reason only: Lyon will keep Alexandre Lacazette who is irreplaceable and who is one of the main leaders of Bruno Genesio’s squad.”

Lacazette has been linked with Arsenal for some time as he has been a prolific goal scorer for Lyon in the Ligue 1 scoring 48 goals in the last two seasons.

Lacazette’s contract ties him with Lyon till 2019 and thus might not join Arsenal.

Arsenal Manager Arsenal Wenger, who has failed to sign Jamie Vardy of Leicester, has said that he is willing to spend ‘Big Money’ this transfer window.

Arsenal has only been able to sign one big player this transfer window and the player being Granit Xhaka.