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From Italy: Arsenal in formal negotiations to sign 22-year-old defender

By on November 16, 2018

According to CalcioMercato, Arsenal are in talks with Sampdoria over a potential deal to sign Joachim Andersen but we face stiff competition from Tottenham for the centre-back’s signature.

Unai Emery, Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi worked hard in the summer to revamp the squad Arsene Wenger left behind following his departure with Greek defender Sokratis among five signings brought to the club.

However, defence has continued to be our achilles heel this season and with Laurent Koscielny yet to return from serious injury and approaching the end of his career and doubts continuing over the inconsistent Shkodran Mustafi, another centre-back is needed.

Several players have been linked with a move to the Emirates but Andersen has now emerged as a potential candidate with Calcio Mercato reporting that Sampdoria chiefs are in London to discuss a possible deal.

The Italian outlet says Sampdoria directors Carlo Osti and Antonio Romei arrived in the capital on Thursday and have held formal transfer talks with Arsenal after we sent scouts to watch the defender this season.

Andersen has been one of the most highly-rated young centre-backs in Italian football since joining Sampdoria from FC Twente last year and he’s also a regular in the Denmark squad with 14 caps to his name already.

The 22-year-old has been linked with a number of European clubs lately but while Calcio Mercato claim that there is no truth linking the player with Manchester United, they say Tottenham are interested and have also held talks about a potential deal.

No possible transfer value is mentioned in the report but I’d imagine Sampdoria will be looking for serious money in today’s overly-inflated market so we’ll probably have to dig deep if we want to get a deal agreed.

Rob Holding has stepped things up this season and we still have Calum Chambers and Dinos Mavropanos on the books but I think we need to bring in a top class successor for Koscielny and Andersen seems to have a huge future ahead of him.