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Arsenal To Table €15.5m Bid For Serie A Defender – Reports

By on June 26, 2015

According to the Express, Arsenal are set to table a formal €15.5m bid for Napoli left-back Faouzi Ghoulam but face stiff competition for his signature.

Ghoulam made his name at Saint-Etienne before making the move to Napoli in January 2014 and he’s been hugely impressive during his time in Italy.

It seems Arsene Wenger has been keeping a close eye on his progress and the Express claim that we’re now ready to test Napoli’s resolve with a €15.5m (£11m) offer.

That’s apparently the sort of money the Serie A club are looking for so our bid could be accepted, but we’re still likely to face some serious competition for the 24-year-old’s signature.

The newspaper suggests that Chelsea are also extremely keen on signing Ghoulam this summer with Jose Mourinho seemingly viewing the Algerian international as a replacement for want-away Filipe Luis, while new Real Madrid boss Rafa Benitez is also understood to be keen to link up with the defender again having been the one to sign him for Napoli 18 months ago.

However, the Express claim Arsenal are in pole position to secure his signature this time around but I’ll personally be shocked if we bring in another left-back this summer.

We already have Kieran Gibbs and Nacho Monreal on the books so unless one of them is leaving, why would we need to strengthen in that department?

There’s no chance Gibbsy is going anywhere so you’d expect it’s Monreal who will make way if we do sign Ghoulam – or any other left-back for that matter.

Reports have linked with 29-year-old with a return to Spain but Monreal was quick to commit his future to the Emirates, so I really don’t know where these rumours of a new full-back are coming from.

As I reported yesterday, we’re also being linked with Augsburg left-back Baba Rahman so the papers do seem to think the boss is needing to bring in reinforcement in that area.

Only time will tell so we’ll just have to wait and see how things develop, but I’d be shocked if Monreal and Gibbs weren’t our main two left-backs next season.