Alexandre Lacazette has heard le bruit, the noise, around whether he will leave Lyon in this transfer window and one of the most exciting and sought-after strikers in European football wants to put the record straight.
Sitting in the offices of his agent, David Venditelli, who has the exclusive mandate to represent the player, Lacazette could not be clearer: he will stay at Lyon until the end of this season after which he could move – and, if so, the likelihood is that it will be to England and the Premier League.
'I am thinking about the Premier League'
“Yes, I am thinking about it and the Premier League is very attractive for a player,” Lacazette explains. “But I know that to go there I have to do well this season. So I am very concentrated on doing well and maybe, after that, I will go there.
“So I know that it is possible that I will move to the Premier League and Lyon are aware of that also. There is no formal agreement that I will go but the president [Jean-Michel Aulas] knows that it’s a possibility that I will leave Lyon at the end of the season.”
Indeed this exclusive interview with The Telegraph is taking place with Lyon’s blessing. Lacazette is their prize asset, their talisman, the jewel in the crown of a talented young team, who has been with the club all his life. But they respect the fact that the 24-year-old has ambitions and wants to consider his options.
Offers have been rejected this month already. There has been interest from Newcastle United and Stoke City – as well as Spain – and soundings from several other Premier League clubs but Lacazette is adamant that he does not want to switch mid-season.
The end of the campaign is a different story and Venditelli, who is chairman of the Score Agencies, worked with Eric Abidal throughout his career and whose clients also include St Etienne coach Christophe Galtier, and defender Loïc Perrin, is clear that they are prepared to open negotiations for the summer. If no agreement is reached Lacazette, who speaks candidly, stresses that he is also happy to stay. It is not definite that he will go.
But there is an ambition to move to another club who can offer Champions League football – something he is determined to secure, again, for Lyon before he does leave.
“I will stay at Lyon in January,” Lacazette reiterates. “I have some personal objectives to follow from now until the end of the season. Then at the end of the season we will see. I will speak about staying or not at Lyon.”
What objectives are they? “The first goal is to improve the position of the team [Lyon are sixth in Ligue 1] and make sure we finish in second place and qualify for the Champions League. The second objective is more personal, it is about scoring goals.”
There have been plenty of goals from Lacazette over the past three seasons. He is the current French player of the year after scoring an astonishing 27 goals in 33 games last season, when he was the league’s top scorer and Lyon pushed Paris St-Germain in a close title race, and although this campaign has been hampered by injury – a back complaint from which he has now recovered – he has seven goals from 16 matches. Lacazette is an explosive player with movement, pace and finishing that he believes will ideally suit the Premier League “because I am used to playing with space and room in front of me and my speed can make a difference also”.
But he is also specific about the type of team he would like to play for if he does leave. “They should play Champions League and play good football, passing the ball and not just hitting it from box to box. Not kick and rush. It would not work for me,” he says.
Lacazette has already spoken to friends, and team-mates from the France squad. “I have spoken with Francis Coquelin and I know [Henri] Saivet who has just signed for Newcastle, and then when I am with the French national team I talk to [Mamadou] Sakho, [Eliaquim] Mangala, [Bacary] Sagna and they all speak very highly of the Premier League,” Lacazette says.
“I like the atmosphere in the Premier League. The teams play attacking football and for a striker that is even more attractive. The stadiums, the pitches and there are only big games. It’s incredibly competitive also. It’s very exciting. Look at Leicester, who only came up two seasons ago and now when they play against the top four teams, the big four, they do not change anything in their game and play the same way. So it’s a very attractive league.”
For the past two years Lacazette has dealt with the rumours that he might be leaving. “I leave all of it to David Venditelli and Score Agencies to deal with everything and manage the situation,” he says. “Who David speaks to is for him to deal with. Now I am used to dealing with all the rumours. But when they started, maybe two years ago, I was destabilised a little by it. But now I am used to it. For me, it’s not so hard because I was not ready [to leave] two years ago or even last season. I was not ready then and my goal is not to go to England for the sake of going to England and I don’t want to go to a club and sit on the bench. So at that time it was not hard for me to stay here. It was a question of waiting until I was ready and I am now ready this summer.”
Lacazette says he remains not only calm but focused and clear-headed in what he wants. “Firstly, I started with this team, started this adventure, and I would like to finish it,” he says. “And secondly if I stay [at Lyon] it gives me more chance of participating in the Euros at the end of this season. That is a very important goal for me, especially as it is in France.”
Securing a place in the France squad means a lot to him. “It makes me think of the World Cup in France in 1998,” he says. “I was only seven but I remember it so well and now I want to live it from the inside, as one of the players, and experience the same thing as the players did in 1998. It’s a great motivation for me to be involved in the Euros. It’s a huge motivation and I think the French team will do well.”
Last weekend Lacazette scored the first goal in Lyon’s impressive new stadium, the Stade des Lumières, an arena which he says changes the “dimension” of the French giants, making them even bigger. And it meant a lot to him.
“It won’t be difficult [to leave] but it will be something special, weird – not weird in a bad way but because I have been at Lyon all my life, 24 years,” Lacazette states. “I love Lyon and have only known Lyon, so obviously it will be a big change if I do go but a change that I am ready for and one that will be good for me and my career. It would be the end of one life and the start of another exciting one."
