The race for Albert Sambi Lokonga is heating up as Atalanta emerges as competitors to Arsenal for his signature.
The Belgian is one of the finest players in his country’s top-flight where he plays for Anderlecht.
Arsenal has plans to add new players to their squad and they are looking to move fast to secure their targets.
Operating at a slow pace has already seen them miss out on signing Emi Buendia to Aston Villa.
They could now miss out on another target as Gianluca Di Marzio reports that Atalanta is keen on landing Lokonga.
The Italians have been one of the impressive clubs in Serie A recently and they are looking to bolster their squad.
They have promised Gian Piero Gasperini some good signings and the midfielder is one of them.
Arsenal has lost Dani Ceballos and Martin Odegaard this summer and they could also sell Granit Xhaka before this summer transfer window closes.
If that happens, they will certainly need more bodies in midfield and Lokonga is one fine addition they can make to their squad.
The report says Napoli also wants to sign him, but Arsenal has already tabled an initial offer of 12m euros.
Since Klopp left Dortmund, there has been a handful of teams who have punched far above their respective weight-classes when it comes to recruitment…Ajax, Frankfurt, Leicester, Salzburg and Atalanta…of course, this list doesn’t include Liverpool, as they’re far too big of a club considering the criteria
if we really want to change our fortunes we would aggressively pursue Atalanta’s manager, Gasperini, with the hopes that he would bring his scouting and development experts with him…there’s no team who has succeeded in getting the most out of it’s players over the last 5 years, which includes a plethora of largely overlooked players, like Gosens, Malinovskyi, Zapata, Freuler and Hateboer, and reclamation projects like, Papu Gomes(recently left), Ilicic and Muriel…all of whom have played their best football under Gasperini’s tutelage
since arriving at the club in 2016-17 they have qualified Europe every season(twice Europa and three times for Champions League)…in the past 3 seasons they have finished in 3rd place in Serie A, while playing an incredibly attractive brand of football…this is the kind of consistency we have coveted in recent years, without resorting to the kind of relegation tactical tricks we’ve encountered under our current manager…who knows, maybe he would likewise lure some of his former players to North London
TRVL, I would add Leicester City and Brighton & Hove Albion to your list.
Leicester is on my aforementioned list OG…Brighton will have to wait until they either compete for European positions or become directly associated with some top flight talent in their respective formative years, like Salzburg with Mane, Sabitzer, Kampl, Haaland and possibly, in the not too distant future, Daka, Szoboszlai and Hee-chan
Apologies TRVL, I missed it when I read your post – my mistake!
I rate B&HA because they have 4 players, who Arsenal have been connected to, so they must be scouting well.
If a player is any good, there will normally be competition for their signature. Wouldn’t it be a worry if there wasn’t? Arsenal has to decide whether they want the player and how hard to compete or not.
Very interesting and highly informative info TRVL.Gasperini and his recruitment team has indeed worked wonders at Atlanta but like Leicester and Brighton he has benefited from the fact that expectations at these Clubs are considerably less than at a fallen giant like Arsenal.This does not detract from the excellent jobs being done by the Management of the Club’s you mention.
What I omitted to say, was that if Gasperini is interested in Lokonga, he must be good.