Lucas Perez is Arsene Wenger's Jamie Vardy Plan B... but Arsenal's new £16.9m striker will settle quickly into life in the Premier League

• e-mail

Deportivo La Coruna's Lucas Perez is set to join Arsenal for a fee of £16.9million as Arsene Wenger finally lands the striker he wants. 

Wenger failed to sign England livewire Jamie Vardy from Leicester but now looks to have found his man in the 27-year-old Spaniard.

Here, Sportsmail's PETE JENSON gives you the lowdown on what the new Gunner will bring to the Premier League...  

Deportivo La Coruna striker Lucas Perez is set to join Arsenal for a fee of £16.9million

Is Wenger getting value for money?

He is getting pace, aggression, a fine left foot, and goals, so at £17m – and by today’s prices - yes, he is. Midway through last season Lucas Perez was out-scoring everyone in Spain bar Neymar and Luis Suarez with 12 goals. 

He ended up with 17 in 36 games – a healthy return in a struggling side that plays with one up front and only scored 45 in total. 

He also matched a club record by scoring in seven straight league games. No one had done that since Bebeto 22 years earlier.

Spanish striker Perez is a similar type of player to Leicester and England's Jamie Vardy

What type of striker is he?

You can see how in Arsene Wenger’s head this is his Jamie Vardy Plan B. 

There are similarities in terms of style and even career story. And the first Premier League club to look at him was Leicester last season with Steve Walsh perhaps trying to get ahead of the game in case they lost Vardy this summer. 

Of course in the end it was Walsh who left and when he moved to Goodison he made sure they went for Perez. Arsenal have beaten them to it however, having been knocked back by Vardy at the start of the summer.

Arsenal tried to sign Vardy earlier this summer before he committed his future to Leicester

Arsenal fans can expect Perez to settle quickly into his new life in the Premier League

And he plays through the middle like Vardy?

He led the line last season in a 4-2-3-1 but he can play wide left too. 

He was the Deportivo's focal point at the weekend, winning and scoring the penalty that gave them three points against Eibar.  

Will he be missed in La Coruna?

As well as his 17 goals last season he also scored one of the goals that kept Deportivo up in the 2014-15 season, a shot from just inside the area at the Camp Nou on the last day to secure a 2-2 draw.

It’s a shame for them to only have him for two years. 

Perez is a local boy who slipped through the net as a kid and when he finally ended up at Riazor, he was quickly whisked away by the Premier League.

Perez is a Deportivo product and has often spoken of his desire to remain with the club forever

In Perez Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has finally landed the striker he has been looking for

But will he miss them too?

He grew up in La Coruna and was taken to his first Deportivo game by his grandparents when he was four. 

He had pictures of Bebeto and of club captain Fran Gonzalez on his wall at home. He would have liked to emulate the latter who stayed for 17 years at the club. 

Perez said in a recent interview he wanted to stay for the rest of his life in La Coruna. 

Now he’s off to London to seek his fortune.

Will he settle easily in England?

Perez left Spain for the Ukraine when he was just 22. 

He stayed for two years despite describing the last four months as the ‘worst’ of his life. And he left despite the fact that he was still owed money and moved to PAOK Salonica in Greece where he got some very brief Champions League experience and then a run in the Europa League. 

In other words he’s been around the block. He’s had to improve his English to be understood, he’s been far from the beautiful northern coast of Spain, but has missed home cooking. It rains plenty in La Coruna, but England will be no big culture shock for him. If he fails, it will not be because he struggled to settle.

Like Vardy, Perez has had a long journey to the top and arrives in England at the age of 27

So will he fail? Or has Wenger got one of the bargains of the summer?

We want to err on the side of optimism and not bash a new signing before he’s finished his medical. 

Arsenal fans will have realised by the price they are not getting one of Europe’s top strikers. But he will fit in. The style will not faze him. He’s intelligent and skillful.

He’s also hungry. When you don’t make your name – Vardy style – until later on in your career then there is no time to lose.

Some say he should have been in the Spain squad that was named on Friday. 

Moving to Arsenal is his big chance to make sure he is in the next one.