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Arsenal in talks over signing £34m star but face competition from Liverpool

By mac14 on August 15, 2017

According to the Guardian, Arsenal have held talks with the agent of Jean-Michael Seri but will now face competition from Liverpool over the signing of the £34m-rated Nice midfielder.

Arsene Wenger has confirmed he’s on the look out for further new additions before the window closes and the boss has been linked with a move for Seri in recent weeks.

The 26-year-old has emerged as one of the best midfielders in France after playing a starring role to help Nice finish third in Ligue 1 last season having chipped in with 7 goals and 9 assists.

The Mirror reported late last week that we were clear to sign the Ivory Coast international after Barcelona withdraw from the race to concentrate their efforts on signing Paulinho.

It’s now claimed in the Guardian that Arsenal chiefs have held talks with Seri’s representatives about a potential move to the Emirates with Wenger contemplating triggering his £34m release clause.

I’ve said for several weeks that we need to sign another midfielder and Seri would be a superb addition to the squad as he’d add real drive and quality to our squad.

However, before any formal swoop can be done the newspaper says the boss needs to first offload some of his fringe players with the likes of Jack Wilshere, Lucas Perez, Mathieu Debuchy, Kieran Gibbs and Joel Campbell all available for transfer.

In addition, while Nice won’t stand in Seri’s way if a club meets his clause, they are reluctant to let the midfielder leave before they’ve played their two-legged Champions League play-off against Napoli.

The delay in securing Seri’s services could cost us because the Guardian claim that Liverpool have now entered the race after they made contact with Nice to express their interest in signing the midfielder.

Jurgen Klopp wants to strengthen his options in the middle of the park and the Merseysiders probably view Seri as an alternative to Naby Keita after failing to land the RB Leipzig star.

READ: Arsenal ready to hijack Tottenham’s £35m deal

So it looks like we’ll have to fend off competition from Liverpool over the coming weeks if we’re to sign Seri. Let’s hope the lad would prefer to live in London over Merseyside as I’d be gutted to miss out….