Don't Miss

Arsenal face battle to sign £33m star as talks intensify

By mac14 on August 20, 2017

According to reports in Spain via Football London, Arsenal face a battle to sign Jean-Micheal Seri as Barcelona are now closing in on a deal to sign the £33m Nice midfielder.

Arsene Wenger has been tipped to dip back in to the transfer market during the closing stages of the window once we’ve managed to ship-out more of our ‘dead wood’.

A new central midfielder is seemingly a priority as the Daily Mail reported recently that Wenger is poised to launch a late bid to sign Seri after identifying him as a prime target.

The Ivory Coast international has developed in to one of the best all-round midfielders in French football after his 7 goals and 9 assists helped Nice finish third in Ligue 1 last season.

Football London claim Arsenal have already held initial talks with Nice about a deal but were reluctant to meet Seri’s £33m release clause, and certainly not before we sell the likes of Jack Wilshere, Lucas Perez, Mathieu Debuchy, Kieran Gibbs and Joel Campbell.

It seems this delay is now going to cost us as the newspaper is citing a report from El Mundo Deportivo that claims Barcelona are now set to secure a deal to sign Seri.

The Spanish publication says that Barca have intensified negotiations with Nice to sign the 26-year-old and expect to wrap-up a £33m deal over the coming days.

If true, this will be a huge disappointment as Seri is a top class central midfielder who’s available at a very reasonable price so there is no excuse why we haven’t acted sooner to get a deal done.

Yesterday’s defeat at Stoke showed once again that our midfield combo of Xhaka and Ramsey doesn’t work so we desperately need to bring in another quality option before the end of the month and Seri would be a superb signing.

Let’s hope these reports from Spain turn out to be wide of the mark as I’d love to see us sign Seri, a top class centre-back and another attacker before the end of the month. If we don’t, then unfortunately I can only see another frustrating season ahead.