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Arsenal To Seal €10m Deal ‘Within Hours’ – 5-Year Contract Agreed – Report

By on January 16, 2014

Our pursuit of Auxerre forward Paul-George Ntep took a huge step closer today with a report on Auxerre TV claiming that we are ‘within hours’ of sealing a €10m deal for the young attacker.

Ntep has been a player heavily linked with a move to the Emirates this week after he posted a photo on Instagram of him on the Eurostar en route to London.

Auxerre president Guy Cotret confirmed yesterday that the 21-year-old had been to the capital to hold talks with Arsenal but insisted no deal was in place for him to move to north London.

However, AuxerreTV – the area’s main local television station – are reporting today that Ntep is ‘within hours’ of signing for Arsenal after we supposedly agreed a €10m fee and Auxerre have already lined up Serbian forward Nikola Stojiljkovic as a replacement.

The website also states that Ntep has agreed terms over a five-year contract and opted to join us over Rennes – who had also submitted a bid. There are further rumours circulating that we could loan him straight back to Auxerre, or possibly even to Rennes, for the rest of the season once the deal is complete.

Arsene Wenger has previously admitted he’s an admirer of the French under-21 international’s, and although there is nothing official confirmed by Arsenal yet, it seems a deal could be edging closer.

If we do end up signing Ntep, you’d have to question the wisdom in signing Yaya Sanogo in the summer. Obviously he’s had his injury troubles since he signed, but he’s barley been fit over the past two years so him being on the treatment table shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone at the club.

Perhaps we’ve given up on him already, or maybe we’re just strengthening our options up front, but I’ll honestly be a little surprised if we splash around £8m on a relatively unknown Ligue 2 forward when we have the likes of Sanogo and Joel Campbell on the books already.

We have plenty of ‘promising’ youngsters, let’s save our money and put it towards a world class striker/attacker who’s going to bring us the title.