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Club ready to sell defensive star to Arsenal in cut-price £18m deal – report

By on August 9, 2018

According to the Sun, Besiktas are ready to sell centre-back Domagoj Vida to Arsenal in a cut-price £18m deal but we still need to offload some fringe players to afford the transfer.

Unai Emery is keen to bring in another defender after Calum Chambers joined Fulham on loan while Laurent Koscielny is facing months out through injury and Vida has emerged as our prime target.

The Croatian international enjoyed an excellent World Cup after playing a starring role in their march to the final and it seems his performances in Russia caught the eye of Arsenal scouts.

The Evening Standard reported earlier this week that Arsenal were in talks with Besiktas over a potential deal worth around £27m but we were reluctant to do business at that price after already spending our initial £70m transfer budget.

However, the Sun suggests that Besiktas have now lowered their asking price and are now prepared to do a deal at £18m with a further £4.5m in possible add-ons should Vida’s move prove to be a success.

I’m sure that deal is more tempting for Arsenal but the newspaper says we still can’t afford it and need to offload some fringe players before being able to push ahead with any move for Vida.

Lucas Perez has joined West Ham for around £4m and we’re hoping to get around £5m for David Ospina but it remains to be seen whether we can raise enough cash to get the Vida deal over the line before 5pm.

I’m not fussed either way as I don’t think we should be pushing the boat out to sign a 29-year-old who joined Besiktas for FREE 8 months ago and has only had a few good games at the World Cup.

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Personally, I’d like to have seen us be more ambitious with our targets but it seems Emery is working with a tight budget and Vida is probably the best we can hope for today.

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