We were only discussing yesterday about the need for Arsenal to get a real winger, and the fact that the Sporting wide-man Gelson Martins was the one that had been most linked with the Gunners so far.
Well today it would appear that Martins has taken the first step in getting his contract annulled at Sporting and is being reported that William Carvalho, Martins, Bruno Fernandes, as well as Dutch striker Bas Dost, all filed notice with Portuguese authorities on Monday to say they were breaking their contracts with Sporting, claiming “just cause”.
They also noted that the Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patricio had already walked out of the club before flying to Russia amid the fallout from last month’s horrific gang attack on players and coaches.
This may be bad news for Portugal and one of their biggest teams, but in the Portugal v Spain pre-game conference midfielder Joao Mario told reporters “Everything that has to do with questions not related to our national team are not going to be discussed because we are all focused on our games for Portugal and the match with Spain,”
“It’s not a question that should be raised now, we are focused on the game against Spain,”
He is right, but it cannot help to prepare for the World Cup with a cloud like that hanging over them. But it does give us extra hope that we can get Martins without a transfer fee, which seems to be something that Arsenal are aiming to do a lot of nowadays…
Darren N