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Contract terms agreed: Arsenal now ‘days away’ from completing major signing

By on June 20, 2019

According to Le10Sport, Arsenal are ‘days away’ from completing the signing of William Saliba and have already agreed personal terms with the highly-rated Saint-Etienne star.

Saliba has been touted as a prime target for Arsenal in the media so far this summer and it looks as though we’re closing in on a deal as the French publication says contract terms have been agreed with the player.

Another French outlet, FootMercato, also claims Arsenal have agreed a five-year contract with Saliba and we’re now just thrashing out the final terms of a deal with Saint-Etienne.

Le10Sport suggest that talks are at an advanced stage and while Arsenal are yet to table a formal offer, the report says we haven’t been put off by Saint-Etienne’s request to have the 18-year-old back on loan for next season.

Some media outlets reported last week that this caveat could derail the proposed deal, but it looks like Arsenal are willing to wait for a year and allow Saliba to develop for another 12 months in France before he moves to north London.

The remaining issue is the transfer fee and Le10Sport suggests Arsenal are trying to lower Saint-Etienne’s £26.5m asking price now that we’ve agreed to loan him back for next season but a deal is expected to be wrapped-up soon.

Saliba is one of the brightest young defenders in French football so he should be an excellent signing for Arsenal and he’ll be viewed as a long-term replacement for Laurent Koscielny.

However, Unai Emery needs to strengthen his defence NOW as we were woeful at the back once again last season having conceded 70 across all competitions so it will be interesting to see what happens if Saliba is our only centre-back signing this summer.

Presumably it would end talk of Koscielny leaving and we may have to hang on to Shkodran Mustafi. Although we do have Callum Chambers returning from loan at Fulham so it could all depend on what Emery has planned for him.

Perhaps the boss feels he has enough defensive options with Sokratis, Koscielny, Holding, Mustafi, Chambers and Monreal all able to play at centre-back as well as youngsters like Dinos Mavropanos.

I’d still expect at least one of those players to leave this summer and I personally don’t think those options are strong enough to tighten up our defence but at least it looks like we’ll have a top young French defender arriving soon. Not too much pressure to put on a teenager!