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“It’s Arsenal Who’ve Been In Contact” – Wenger In Talks For Striker

By on July 27, 2015

According to a report in the Express over the weekend, Arsenal have opened talks with Juventus over a potential deal for striker Fernando Llorente.

Arsene Wenger is expected to bring in another forward this summer and the boss confirmed last week that he’s ready to spend if he can find the right player.

Karim Benzema has been widely touted as our top target but with that deal going to be extremely tricky to pull off, it looks like Wenger is lining-up a potential back-up option.

We saw reports last week suggesting we are eyeing Fernando Llorente and it appears we’ve now stepped-up our interest as the Express are carrying a quote from an apparent inside source who says we’ve made contact over the striker.

The actual quote was given to the Sun newspaper, so we’ll have to take it with a huge pinch of salt, but the ‘source’ believes that Juve are ready to cash-in on the Spanish hitman.

“It’s Arsenal who’ve been in contact — not United,” a ‘source’ told the Sun

“They have made an inquiry but there is no bid yet. But it is clear they are interested and it is also clear that Juventus are ready to listen.”

Llorente moved to Turin on a free transfer two years ago but has failed to establish himself and he’s going to fall even further down the pecking order following the arrivals of Mario Mandzukic and Pablo Dybala, so it’s no surprise that Juve are ready to sell.

The Express suggests he’d be available for around £8m, and he wouldn’t be a terrible signing at that kind of price, but I’d only like to see us go for Llorente as a last resort.

We need a world class striker to be real title contenders next season. Someone like Benzema or Lewandowski. Llorente is a solid forward and would give us another option up top, but he’s no better than what we already have.

So I think Arsene will continue to push for his prime targets and only make a move for the former Athletic Bilbao hitman during the final days of the window if all else fails.