When Alexandre Lacazette first arrived at Emirates Stadium back in 2010, he did not have much time to take it in - or realise that it could be a future home.

The French forward was part of the Lyon squad for the Emirates Cup, but only arrived at the team hotel in London shortly before kick off.

“What happened was that we had won the European U-19 Championship in France the previous day, so we only arrived at the hotel an hour before we had to set off for the Emirates!” Lacazette told Arsenal Player.

“We arrived in good time for the warm-up. It’s just that by the time we travelled from the training camp in France to London, there was only an hour or two to spare.”

Lacazette had scored the winner for France U-19s in the European Championship final 24 hours earlier – with Francis Coquelin one of his team-mates.

“Francis and I kept in touch after that,” Lacazette added. “We’ve had a lot of contact over the last few years and even more over the last few weeks, of course, since it became increasingly likely that I would come to Arsenal.

“He has said only good things about Arsenal, which is not surprising because he wanted me to join the club. Even without that I still really wanted to come here.

“He stressed that it was a great club located in a fantastic city. He said I would not regret my decision to move here because of the people I’d be working with and, of course, the fans.”