Arsenal confirm signing of Lukas Podolski
April 30, 2012
Post created by Jordan
Polish born, German international and FC Cologne forward Lukas Podolski has confirmed he is set to start the 2012/13 campaign in North London today. After spending his early years training and playing with FC Bergheim 2000, the 26-year-old joined the youth set-up at Cologne in 1995, before making his first-team debut in 2003. He then sent three successful seasons with Cologne he moved to Bayern Munich in 2006. He spent three seasons with Bayern before re-joining FC Cologne in 2009 and is now regarded as one of the leading strikers in the Bundesliga.
Podolski has made 95 appearances for Germany and scored 43 goals since making his debut as a 19-year-old in 2004. He made a huge impact with a series of impressive performances at the 2006 World Cup, where he scored three times and followed this up with three more goals at Euro 2008.
Arsene Wenger has said: “We are delighted to secure the deal for Lukas and see him as an important part of our future. He is a top-class player, a very good finisher and a proven performer at club and international level. He is a very strong player and will provide us with good attacking options.
We are happy to have made this signing early and we are looking forward to watching Lukas contribute at the European Championship over the summer, a level where he has already made 95 caps at the age of 26. That is a phenomenal record and just shows his quality as a player.”
The move has been confirmed on his personal Facebook and on Arsenal.com, with the fee reported to be just short of £11 million. It seems that the club are rectifying their mistakes of last season, where they left the majority of their transfer dealings until the last week of the transfer period. Andre Santos, Per Mertersecker, Yossi Benayoun, Mikel Arteta and Park Chu Young all arrived in the last few days. This move also shows the ambition that is widely reported to be necessary to keep hold of talisman and star striker Robin Van Persie, who himself has just a year on his contract.
Truly, this is the landmark signing the club needed, and hopefully Podolski can step up for a big club, which he failed to do when he moved to Bayern in 2006. He has been proven at international level and will hopefully add excitement to the Premier League next season.
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