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Club agree to sell after defender confirms desire to join Arsenal

By on June 8, 2016

According to the Metro, Wolfsburg have revealed they’ve agreed to sell Ricardo Rodriguez after the left-back confirmed his interest in joining Arsenal this summer.

Rodriguez has been strongly linked with a move to the Emirates in recent weeks with the International Business Times reporting late last month that Arsene Wenger was ready to formalise his interest by triggering the defenders £19m release clause.

The speculation then intensified when the 23-year-old was quoted in the Evening Standard last week as saying that he’d like to follow Swiss team mate Granit Xhaka – who he shares a room with while on international duty – to Arsenal.

When asked about joining Arsenal, he said:

“That would be exciting, yes, especially because the room arrangement at Arsenal would be fixed as well.”

Rodriguez was then quoted as saying that staying at Wolfsburg this summer was ‘unrealistic’ after they missed out on any form of European football following an eighth-placed finish in the Bundesliga last season.

Now, Wolfsburg’s sporting director Klaus Allofs has admitted that they have agreed to sell the left-back after he made it clear he wants to leave this summer. Allofs is quoted as saying by the Metro:

‘The agreement was indeed made with Ricardo. As we have recently entertained, was clear: His idea is to leave us.’

So, Wolfsburg have confirmed the player wants to leave, Rodriguez has confirmed he’d like to join and we’re reportedly ready to meet his buyout clause, so everything is falling in to place for the 23-year-old to move to North London this summer.

Rodriguez’s arrival would almost certainly see Keiran Gibbs leave the club as he’s been tipped to move on after losing his first team place to Nacho Monreal over the past couple of seasons.

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Assuming we can get around £12m for Gibbs, it would be a great piece of business to replace him with Rodriguez as the Swiss international would offer stiff competition for Monreal next season and then potentially take over from the Spaniard as our first choice left-back the following year.