Arsenal have been linked with a deal to sign Shkodran Mustafi for a number of weeks now, and the deal is now said to be in the balance.
Valencia are claimed to have raised their asking price to £50 Million for the German international, which will certainly not be paid by the Gunners, but they are working on their own deal to sign Pedro from Chelsea.
The winger joined the West-London side from Barcelona 12 months ago, but will not have enjoyed the best time, with the club having fallen from winning the league one year, to finishing a lowly tenth place in his one and only campaign in England.
Valencia are now claimed to have sent their Director of Football Jesus Garcia Pitarch to London to thrash out a deal for the winger, but they are known to not be in the best financial position, and could be relying on the cash from our Mustafi deal to broker their Pedro deal.
Arsenal are now hoping that they will be more realistic in their asking price in order for both clubs to land their desired targets, with the club desperate to add numbers to their defence, with Per Mertesacker missing the majority of the season, and neither Gabriel and Kosc fully fit currently either.
The Brazilian is not expected to feature for another month, while the French defender played the full 90 minutes against Leicester, despite having a ‘big back problem‘ suffered the day before the match, with him forced to play through the pain.
Will Chelsea do us a favour and agree to sell Pedro to Los Che? How much do we think Arsenal are willing to pay for Mustafi?
We shouldn’t be relying on other clubs to make signings, if we ever want to be considered a top club we have to show the power to attract top players independently. You don’t see Real or Barca and heck even Chelsea relying on others to get their targets. Top clubs in the modern era are pro-active NOT reactive, and if Wenger wasn’t stuck in his delusion he would’ve gone for Mustafi at the start of the transfer window that way Valencia wouldn’t be asking for 50mil.
See, I can bet anything on this that this deal won’t happen, just watch,these people know what they are doing! Holding had a good game, Kos is back, so Belik and champers as back up, have said it before, that’s what he wants to do! Meanwhile Valncia Coach said Mustafi is not for sale!!! End of story.
I don’t agree that that’s what he wants to do, but I do agree that his stubbormness would allow this to happen.
If val are really playing hard ball and upping the cost, then I think Wenger will say fk you, I’m going to see how we get on until jan window. If it works and people herald young Holding, people will say Wenger was right to resist the huge payout when we have fine English youngsters who can do just as well as their foreign counterparts. And they’d say how they’d like to see other top managers do this. If it goes wrong, well you can imagine, he’ll probably be retiring soon later.
This now a clear farce in all sense…
Waiting for the Change will come.
Think Holding looks like a great buy. Talent wise I think we ok at the back (OK – shouldn’t be enough for Arsenal)-
But what we really lack is the voice of authority in defence – which was previously achieved by Mertesacker
That’s the only reason Wengers even considering a new CB
Yes I agree. They should have bought Ashley Williams. He’s an Adams type of guy. A general. I’m so sick of Wenger not seeing what everyone else can see. I’d be amazed if we buy anyone else in this window. The guy’s a complete farce.
Ah come on now, he’s not a complete farce, he did manage to build a semi half decent team at one time, and I think they even managed to string a small run of games together.
West Brom asking 25 millions for Evans. Hahaha. They are right anyway. That’s what you get for keeping things late.
Wenger: I hope to close the deal before the window ends.
Valencia manager: Mustafi is not for sale..
I don’t know who is lying between them but we will know soon.
Fair case scenario, play Kos and Holding..until Gabriel comes back. Holding could be a gem..then get us a striker.
Worst case scenario, no CB or striker coming in….
guys chambers was also good when he started winning our player of the month award.
So I will not be dragged too much into that.
We used to be bigger than Chelsea and city but now even Tottenham have caught up with us and maybe better.
Our first choice striker wouldn’t even be backup in some clubs.
We have a relaxed manager who thinks our academy is as good as la masia and United but we are not even as good as Chelsea’s academy.
Poor management continues to drag us back from what we used to be.
If all the tott and Arsenal results were turned the other way around, they had two recent cups and finished above us and in the CL every year, I guarantee you that you would not be saying we have caught up on tott. City, che and utd are ahead of us all right, but we are ahead of everyone else. If you are going to go by one season of tott in the CL, well then that means leic are ahead of everyone and we are ahead of everyone other than leic.
To me it looks more like they’re preparing for Alcacer departure by moving for a forward. This might not be good news at all, if they targeted a defender, now that would be a good sign. After the thrashing they got recently, it now looks even less likely they will sell their best defender. Depends who they’d like to keep more I suppose, between Alcacer and Mustafi, you’d think it’d be Alcacer, but you need to remember it’s barca that want him and they are a difficult club to say no to. Another thing on Pedro, I’m surprised Pep isn’t going for him.