Bayern Munich and Portugal\u2019s Joao Palhinha has spoken publicly for the first time since being linked with a summer move to Arsenal.<\/p>\n
The Bayern Munich midfielder was said to be on\u00a0Arsenal\u2019s\u00a0radar<\/a> earlier in the window, with reports from Germany suggesting a deal was close before the Club World Cup.<\/p>\n Bild<\/a> claimed Arsenal<\/a> had held talks with Bayern, who are open to sales to fund further business, and Palhinha was named as one of the players made available.<\/p>\n That report came after a frustrating debut season in Germany for the former Fulham<\/a> man, who made just six Bundesliga starts following a \u00a347.4million transfer last summer.<\/p>\n The 30-year-old has faced fierce competition in midfield under Vincent Kompany, with no guarantees over a starting role next season.<\/p>\n Despite that, Palhinha<\/a> has now spoken out to put some distance between himself and the speculation. In an interview with Portuguese outlet Sport TV, he made it clear he has no intention of leaving Bayern at this stage of the window.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a contract for three more years, so I\u2019ll report for duty on July 29, which is when we start this pre-season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I\u2019ve said several times, and it\u2019s been a recurring question, I have three more years on my contract.\u201d<\/p>\n Palhinha did admit that his first season had not gone to plan, but insisted he remains focused on proving his worth at the Allianz Arena.<\/p>\n MORE ARSENAL COVERAGE ON F365\u2026 \u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen, but I\u2019m at a great club, as I\u2019ve always said,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it hasn\u2019t been an easy year, but as soon as the season starts, I\u2019m very motivated to prove my worth once again at a very special club, a huge club.\u201d<\/p>\n Arsenal have been active in midfield already this summer, bringing in Christian Norgaard from Brentford and Martin Zubimendi from Real Sociedad.<\/p>\n Palhinha was believed to be an option earlier in the process, but the Gunners ultimately walked away from talks before turning to other targets.<\/p>\n Their focus has since shifted to attacking reinforcements, with deals close for Valencia defender Cristhian Mosquera and Sporting striker Viktor Gyokeres. A move for Eberechi Eze is also being worked on, though Crystal Palace are standing firm over his \u00a368 million release clause.<\/p>\n Palhinha\u2019s latest comments seem to put an end to any chances that he\u2019ll be part of Mikel Arteta\u2019s current rebuild, with Portugal\u2019s number six seemingly keen to impress at the Allianz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bayern Munich and Portugal\u2019s Joao Palhinha has spoken publicly for the first time since being linked with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[498,49,48,700,1613,4389,44,574,561,82,4390],"class_list":["post-3384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-arsenal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-front-page","tag-home-page","tag-joao-palhinha","tag-news","tag-premier-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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