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Journalist reveals when Arsenal will submit £19.5m defender bid

By on August 7, 2016

Italian journalist Emanuele Giulianelli claims that Arsenal will finally submit a formal £19.5m bid for Shkodran Mustafi once Valencia find a replacement for the centre-back.

Arsene Wenger desperately needs to bring in another central defender after losing Per Mertesacker for five months with a knee injury which he picked up during our 1-1 friendly draw with Lens last month.

Mustafi has emerged as our key target in recent weeks with Sky Sports News reporting two weeks ago that we’d opened initial talks with Valencia over a potential deal to sign the German international.

The Sun then claimed last week that Wenger had given the green light to pushing ahead with a move for the 24-year-old and talks with Valencia director Jesus Garcia Pitarch were scheduled where all three parties were keen to thrash out a deal.

The La Liga outfit are understood to be willing to sell Mustafi for significantly less than his £42m buyout clause as they need to balance the books and the newspaper says they have identified Napoli’s Raul Albiol as a potential replacement.

It looks like Valencia’s pursuit of the Spaniard is all that’s preventing Arsenal from pushing ahead with their move for Mustafi as Italian journalist Giulianelli – who works for Gazzetta Dello Sport – says that we’ll submit our £19.5m offer once they secure a replacement.

He tweeted:

So it looks like we’re waiting on Valencia finding another centre-back before we can land Mustafi but time is running out to get him on board before the season opener against Liverpool.

We entertain the Merseysiders in seven days so you’d think Mustafi would need to be signed in the next couple of days for him to stand any chance of featuring against Liverpool.

I personally don’t think that’s going to happen, so the chances are we won’t have any new faces to choose from next Sunday, but there will be an outrage among the fans if Wenger doesn’t sign at least a centre-back and a new striker before the end of the window.

MORE: Wenger confirms 5 players will miss Liverpool game

That’s the minimum we need to be title challengers, and given they will simply replace the injured Mertesacker and Welbeck, there is a reasonable argument that we actually need to sign more than just two players over the coming weeks.

Over to you Arsene….