Arsenal stacks attack with club-record Lacazette signing

For a club often maligned for waiting until the transfer window's final moments to do its summer shopping, Arsenal has bucked the trend in signing Alexandre Lacazette for a club-record fee.

The Gunners announced the move Wednesday with a tweet, adding that the 26-year-old France international makes the Premier League switch on a five-year deal for a club-record £52-million transfer fee that includes £7 million in add-ons, according to a statement from Lyon.

That amount eclipses the £42.5 million Arsenal paid Real Madrid for Mesut Ozil four summers ago, and considering the growing trend of exorbitant transfers, it's a reasonable price tag for a player who has scored no fewer than 21 goals in each of his last three Ligue 1 campaigns with Les Gones.

A Lyon academy product that broke through with the first team in 2010, Lacazette bagged a century of goals for the club prior to expressing an interest at a summer exit, and quotes from club chairman Jean-Michel Aulas linked the 11-times-capped Les Bleus forward with a move to Atletico Madrid. Those efforts to join up with France teammate Antoine Griezmann were snuffed out when the capital club's transfer ban was upheld, meaning Atleti could not register new players until January.

Arsenal then stepped up as favourites in the Lacazette chase, and with uncertainty over the futures of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, Arsene Wenger and Co. snatched up the player who was second in Ligue 1 this past season with 28 goals.

Lacazette becomes the latest Frenchman to call north London home, and the second significant summer signing for Arsenal after it lured Bosnian left-back Sead Kolasinac to the Emirates from Schalke on a free transfer.