Houssem Aouar has been a rumoured Arsenal target for a few years, but has remained at his boyhood club Lyon after breaking into the first team five years ago.
Yet again this season, the Gunners have been linked with the French international as Mikel Arteta has been desperately searching for an attacking midfielder that will fit in with his tactical plans.
But it now seems that Arteta is making either Leicester’s James Maddison or Martin Odegaard as his favourite targets for that position, but one thing is for sure is that Aouar is very unlikely to be still playing at Lyon next season.
The new Lyon coach Peter Bosz has replaced Rudi Garcia, and in an indepth interview with the French website butfootball.fr he was asked about the future of Aouar. He gave a very short and clear response. “ Aouar? Il peut partir, c’est ça le foot moderne. Jusqu’au dernier moment, il peut partir.”
This translates to “Aouar? He can leave, this is modern football. Up until the last moment, he can leave.”
Well, he can’t be much clearer than that! The Sun claim that Arsenal have been talks with the 23 year-old’s agents in recent weeks, and say that the Frenchman would be available for around £25m despite being on the market for 40m just 12 months ago.
It also sounds like that price could drop on deadline day if no other concrete offers come in for him. Could Arteta be keeping him in reserve if he can’t secure Odegaard or Maddison?