Just a day or so ago it was being reported that Arsenal where on the verge of completing the signing of William Saliba, however, that may not quite be the case.
Reports are now claiming that Tottenham is making an eleventh-hour bid to sign the 18-year-old defender.
Apparently, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has made contact with Saliba’s club, St Etienne to register his interest in the teenager.
The Champions League finalists have already been talking to both the player and his representatives according to the report.
For weeks now it was assumed that all Arsenal had to do was agree on terms with the Ligue 1 side with the sticking point being St Etienne’s demand that the player is loaned back for a year.
Saliba is valued at £20 Million and because of the limited transfer budget that Arsenal have if it comes to a bidding war then the chances are Tottenham will prevail.
If Arsenal loses out to their bitter North London rivals it will be a body blow. Unai Emery is desperate to rebuild his defence and Saliba was one of his primary targets.
The Arsenal defence is in need of surgery and according to multiple reports Emery is targeting quality young defenders but each transfer seems to have issues.
The club has struggled to agree to terms with St Etienne and their attempts at signing Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney have been ridiculed for an opening low ball offer.
If he’s going to be loan back to them for next season then what’s the point of spending £20 million on him?
We need a CB for THIS coming season and we have maybe a £40+ million budget
If he comes this summer great but if not then go after someone else
kev said the payment is a five years installment, so we will only pay 5 M for him this year, which left us with enough budget to buy another CB
Unless Arsenal keep Koscielny/ Monreal/ Mustafi/ Chambers and decide not to add more CB
Must be true-Kev said so
Oh okay. That’s fine. I should of reading it properly. Thanks
kev has told us Saliba is done deal
Arsenal just need to chase another CB like Upamecano, because Saliba will be loaned back to his club
I just hope Tottenham wouldn’t hijack Tierney to replace the want-away Danny Rose
why sending him on loan again, we need a CB badly, if that be the case we should go after zagadou of Dortmund then, tall, energetic and left footed CB, and it will cost less than Saliba
‘if it comes to a bidding war then the chances are Tottenham will prevail.’ may i ask the author if totenharm is the new man city? Just because of 1 Ndombele deal, spurs are now the new real madrid or psg that arsenal can afford to have a head on bidding war with? I totally disagree, the fact that we are broke doesnt mean spur isnt. Rumour are just rumour,thats all. Lets wait and see what happens next
This loaning arrangement isnt to bad for 5 million but why not get players that can move in directly to our squad like for example dominik szoboszlai” if any one out there has a direct connection please tell’em get this guy ” We know all that we have is 45 million so lets get the ones we can afford and move on and then look at what we can sell most of the activity will happen late on ….we got the south American cup and African cup so these players will take time before they return back to work
I have some family living in France and they watch all st Etienne’s games, the player they mention the most is Saliba they cannot say enough about this guy, they don’t want him to leave he is young but is calm on the ball reads situations well good in the air and is not phased by the more experienced players around him, sounds like he will make a future captain,however the say there have been rumblings of the big clubs watching him all season so I wouldn’t bank on seeing him in our shirt yet,as much as i would like to see it.
Our club is notorious for dragging out transfers and it would never surprise me if they missed the boat on this one.
We need to strengthen our defence for this coming season.
We desperately need a quality CB and to sell Mustafi
Ideally two but with our budget, unlikely
We also need a CM and winger
We may sign Saliba but he may never actually play for us.Possible scenario- Saliba enhances his reputation next season by which time the top and richest sides in Europe come calling.They offer Arsenal £65m for him. We take it because we are still stuck with the likes of Ozil and Mik and their obscene wages.Just a thought to kick off this morning.