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Arsenal Could Still Sign Midfielder Despite €30m Bid ‘Rejected’
Arsenal could still sign William Carvalho despite seeing a bid rejected as long as we agree to pay the entire €30m fee upfront, according to the Telegraph.
Carvalho is the latest defensive midfielder to be linked with a move to the Emirates after our supposed move for Sami Khedira collapsed due to his excessive wage demands.
Reports over the weekend claimed that we’d failed with a €30m (£24m) bid for the 22-year-old, with Sporting Lisbon apparently not willing to do business for anything less than his €45m (£35m) buy-out fee.
However, the Telegraph have given us more insight and it turns out we could still sign the Portuguese midfielder as long as we are prepared to pay the entire €30m in one go.
Our initial offer was to pay the fee in two installments, but as Sporting only own 60% of Carvalho’s rights, they would only have received around €9m from the deal this summer, which wouldn’t have been sufficient for them to find a suitable replacement.
So the Telegraph suggest that it was the payment structure, not the figure, that Sporting have rejected, and if we agree to pay the full €30m up front they are far more likely to accept the deal.
Obviously we would rather split the payment over a longer period but we do have the cash available now, which should go in our favour during negotiations.
Carvalho would be an excellent signing as he has the potential to be one of the best defensive midfielders in Europe, so I’d be delighted if we could get a deal done.
However, my preference would probably still be Morgan Schneiderlin, as he’d be less of a risk due to his experience in the Premier League.
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