Arsenal are expected to announce the signing of Kelechi Nwakali this week, having agreed terms and completed a medical some months ago.
The midfielder captained his Under-17 Nigeria side to win the Under-17 World Cup back in November, and went onto pick up the Golden Ball award given to the most valuable Player of the tournament.
His international team-mate Samuel Chukwueze was expected to move to Arsenal this summer, having completed a medical and agreeing a five-year deal, but a fee was not reached with the Diamond Football Academy, and now looks set to fall through.
The midfielder is set to sign despite the struggles however, with his brother Allwell Nwakali claiming that nobody is allowed to represent his sibling but him, and that they can sue him if there is an issue. He also revealed that Arsenal had offered much more than Ajax had to secure his arrival, and that the Gunners would represent a much better place for his brother to develop.
Allwell said: “[Ekeocha] came with an offer from Ajax Amsterdam and Arsenal’s offer was three times more and we are talking about euros and pounds here,” he said.
“Arsenal is bigger than Ajax in developing young players. Kelechi has signed with Arsenal, he has done a medical, let him [Ekeocha] sue me if he’s aggrieved not Arsenal.
“I represent Kelechi, nobody can represent my brother. When I was in London, he [Ekeocha] was calling Arsenal not to sign him and the club informed me.”
Former Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas, Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos and Man City’s impressive youngster Kelechi Iheanacho are all former Golden Ball winners also, and Nwakali could prove to be the next big star to come out of the tournament.
Could Nwakali follow fellow Nigerian Alex Iwobi and earn a place in the Arsenal first-team this season?
One for the future …
What about the present?
Noooo ..ffs! ? ? I new that this news would pop up, in this kind of fashion ?. .. Bad timing my friend, you can expect a backlash from some angry fan’s! ?
Click bait at its best.
Its all good signing young stars but the 1st team has serious holes in it. Hope these WC winners wont just end up the underperforming Chuba, Silva, Niles, Gnabry, etc who were all deemed the next big thing.
Apparently the terms with this youngster have been agreed,
5 year contract and wages but as per usual, Arsenal have only offered £2.5 million for him, which was turned down!
Someone correct me if i’m wrong.. but i believe that offer was for chukwueze, his team-mate who we’d supposedly already wrapped a deal up for as well. I understand the hold-ups as it seems to be not the largest academy in a smaller country trying to get as much money for their prized assets as they can…
I’ll actually be disappointed if this doesn’t go through… Nwakali is the captain of the u17 world-cup winning squad and player of the tournament.
I’m aware that playing against kids is different to men. But to step up that highly for your country at such a young age shows wonders for his mentality. Our academy is absolutely stacked with wingers (Maitland-Niles, JRA, Gnabry, Willock, Reiss-Nelson). I’d love us to get a potentially beastly midfielder!
Ok great….will expect to see him in 5 years time then…maybe!
In the meantime I believe we need a striker and a CB…..for now the present time!
maybe its just me but if a striker had said to me i will let you know i would purposely look at the next option. Arsenal are bigger than any player. for mr to sigh Mikh or Mharez would be a better option with Lcazette, then go and sign a top top CB, if we continue as have done in previous years, we will not even make top 4, City,Utd,Chels are all paying big money to improve yet it seems our only target is do just enough to get the season tickets sold
Yeah, sure it’s not like he’s even from Lei, he’s not even there that long. When lei payed peanuts for players, nobody felt sorry for Fleetwood or anyone else. Whenever we get raided, we get a public caning at the same time. The lad should be biting our hand off, and the public should be saying to lei, well this is how it is, and you cant blame anyone for wanting to play in one of the biggest and most famous clubs in the world.
This is the same Nwakali whom was claimed to have been signed since january last season….
Can’t believe it takes forever to complete the transfer of a 17 yr old inexperienced star… Imagine how long it’d take to complete the signing of someone like Aubameyang
Newsflash: we are yet to even sign his fellow compatriot Chukwueze!
Call me whatever but this Vardy circus has placed a sour patch already on our transfer window. Was truly excited with the Xhaka deal, riding on high confidence then came crashing down with this Vardy obsession. Honest I never wanted him and I think if we were to target a Leciester player it should be Mahrez. I know it sounds crazy because we need a striker but I really feel we can do better and I hope he isn’t the only ST target we are pursuing. At this point I would take Morata as I feel he’s more suited to our style regardless of how many goals he did or didn’t score. Do we really need a 20-30 goal a season scorer our someone to compete with Giroud who will eventually bench him? Someone who can chip in with his fair share of goals because there are others who should be scoring as well.
Jesus everyday reporters write the same things but just rewords it:
Vardy mulling over move and waiting until after the Euros
Arsenal have no interest in signing Mahrez according to John Cross (shame) while Arsenal make €35M bid for Mahrez
Mhkitaryan prefers Arsenal move and won’t sign Dortmund extension
Walcott’s staying one minute next minute leaving
Ospina moving to Turkey
Rodriguez wants to leave and join his buddy at Arsenal
DO THEY ACTUALLY GET PAID FOR THIS? Yet here I thought Walcott was the only 1 stealing a living.
He has every chance of becoming one in the future, he’s at the right club too. I thought this saga was over ages ago. That dude who tried to stop our Kelechi signing, he must be the one behind the other signing going south. Porto are now going to nip in and steal the winger we’re after, when you see Porto’s record of turning young foreign players into huge profit, you maybe want to stop this from happening. Still, I’m glad we got this one over the line, he got player of the tournament, he must be a talented boy. Especially when you see how some of the goalscorers done pretty darn well in that comp, but they give it to a lad who dictated and controlled the flow at a young age. Welcome Kelechi Nwakali, I believe you are going to put the work in and one day become a very important player for the Arsenal.
The problem with these young boys they usually fail to shine when they grow. The likes of Frimpong,Sanogo,Aldiere, Djorou so I have fear on these young boys.Otherwise it’s a good deal and we shall welcome them in our feature Arsenal squad