Arsenal are no longer in the race to sign Manuel Locatelli from Sassuolo according to Fabrizio Romano.
The 23 year-old was believed to have been the subject of two bids from the North London side, but Locatelli made his intentions clear that he favoured a move to Juventus, and seemingly knocked back the idea of going anywhere else.
The Neroverdi and Juve are yet to come to an agreement over his signature however, but despite this, we are believed to have moved onto other targets.
Fabrizio Romano has now confirmed that we are no longer ‘pushing’ to sign the Euro 2020 star, and cannot see us signing him this summer.
“I am also told that at the moment Arsenal are not pushing,” Fabrizio told the Don Robbie YouTube channel.
“They know that the player wants to go to Juventus and they are focusing on other things. So, that’s why I don’t see Locatelli joining Arsenal this summer.”
Granit Xhaka was previously linked with the exit door, but he now looks set to sign a new deal with the club, which means we aren’t light in that area of the pitch, with Mo Elneny, Thomas Partey, Joe Willock and Albert Sambi Lokonga in contention for the upcoming campaign, although an injury to the Ghanaian was far from ideal ahead of the start of the campaign.
It could well give us an early insight into Lokonga however, especially if Mikel Arteta opts to trust him enough to start him against Brentford next week, and I get the feeling he could well be in line to start our Premier League opening fixture.
Could Xhaka’s new deal end our interest in Locatelli? If the Juventus move falls through could Arsenal return with another attempt to sign him from Sassuolo?
Patrick
I know that he would not come in to Arsenal because The North London are not in champions league
I never wanted Locatelli either, we need physically built midfielders, as we lack a lot of stamina and speed,
I would love to see Kulusevski and Guimaraes in our midfield,
I have a feeling Xhaka would be sold before the window closes,
Sassuolo’s ceo set a deadline for Aug 8th so we should find out what’s happening regarding locatelli in the next couple of days. Whilst I think he is not an option for us, i strongly believe we need another central midfielder especially with partey’s injury problems but I get the worrying feeling that we won’t sign one with xhaka now staying probably putting payed to that.
Arsenal don’t need players who don’t want to be at the Club. There are enough of those there now; Bellerin, Kolasinac, Torreira, Xhaka (before he signed an extension) included.
As others have stated their are numerous good ACM’s and DM’s available like Houssem Aouar, Marcel Sabitzer, Renato Sanchez, Bruno Guimaraes, Yves Bissouma. Matheus Pereira and Nuno Neves are gone.
Arsenal can get an ACM plus DM for the price of James Maddison and one or the other for the price of Locatelli.
Procrastination by management with the first game against Brentford on 13 August, is not an option. Surely there is concern about “trusting the process”.
Arsenal should sign sabitzer and Haussen combine fee of 20m+25m, why splush more for Madison? this two are cheap sign both and push harder to get Martinez he is willing to come and inter interested in business.for Madison Lecester will not lower their price.you can add Rightbug and Gk.
I guess this “home-grown” stuff is influencing the club’s choice of targets to pursue given the rather unsavory experiences with players last season