EMERY MAY GET MIDFIELDER SAY
Unai Emery will get a minimal say in Arsenal transfers this summer, according to the Daily Mirror, but the one position not yet decided by the transfer overloads is midfield. According to John Cross – who feels like a ‘little bit of Arsenal died’ with the appointment of Emery – the club have already decided on the rest of their summer targets. They want at least one more central defender – ‘with Borussia Dortmund’s Sokratis Papastathopoulos top of the list and Jonny Evans available for £3m’ – and the Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper Bernd Leno. The rest of the £50m war chest will be spent on a midfielder.
AND THAT MIDFIELDER IS…
Jean-Michael Seri, according to the Daily Mail. Unai Emery targeted the Nice midfielder when he was still at PSG so there might be a little bit of 2 + 2 going on here, but it feels about right. Seri is available for just £35m, which is just about in Arsenal’s price range. The bad news is that Seri did not have the greatest of seasons, but that might have been because his head was turned by supposed Barcelona interest. This summer his president says he can leave and he has been reportedly been offered to the Premier League Big Six.
MARTIAL FOR SALE…BUT NOT TO CHELSEA
He sits atop our ten Premier League players up for sale this summer and on Tuesday all the talk was of a move to Tottenham, but the Mail’s Mike Keegan – who crucially will be fed his information from Manchester rather than London – says that United are very reluctant to sell the Frenchman to another English club, for fear that his sale will bite them on the bum. He claims that Chelsea and Tottenham are interested but that United would prefer to sell to a European club; their only real hope is that Juventus and Martial fancy each other.
AND THE REST
Manchester City are considering a move for 18-year-old Ajax and Netherlands defender Matthijs de Ligt…Steven Gerrard wants to sign 18-year-old Liverpool and Wales striker Ben Woodburn on loan for Rangers…Brighton are closing on Paris St-Germain’s Malian defender Moussa Sissako…Danny Welbeck is being linked with Besiktas.