If you want to buy Alexandre Lacazette, you’re going to have to pay a fortune.

Perhaps that’s one reason why no one has done it yet. Olympique Lyonnais have been able to hold out for longer than many would have anticipated for a player who is surely on the radars of most of the Europe’s top clubs. He is one of the hottest properties on the continent.

Most of the clubs linked have money to burn, though. So what’s stopping them? Maybe it’s not just Lyon’s price tag, then. Maybe there’s something else.

Lacazette plays in a Lyon side who currently sit in fourth place in Ligue 1. They’re struggling, really: 16 points behind leaders Monaco and 19 points ahead of Dijon in the final relegation place. Not that Lyon are in any danger of relegation or even finishing outside the European places, in fairness. It’s just that, in a season where PSG are being challenged for the title by two teams, you’d expect one of them to be Lyon. Instead, it’s Monaco and Nice.

Struggling though his side might be, Lacazette has 22 goals in 22 Ligue 1 appearances this season. 27 goals in 31 games in all competitions, in fact. He is a goal machine. The very definition, almost.

That’s because, really, goals are all Lacazette does. A horrible start to last season saw him go the first month of the season without a goal. He rallied back and managed 23 in all competitions, recording a respectable total in the end, but his goal drought wasn’t the main reason he was left out of France’s Euro 2016 squad. His all-round link-up play has been questioned, as has his passing ability and his work off the ball.

The reality is that in modern football, strikers seem to need more than power, pace, and finishing ability. If Liverpool are an interested party, then you only need to look at Daniel Sturridge’s struggles on the bench to see that Lacazette would be a big risk. It’s a similar story with Arsenal. If there are questions over his ability to press high up the pitch, then the reported £60m price tag will surely make top clubs think twice.

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