Arsenal want to sign Atletico Madrid forward Julian Alvarez, head coach Diego Simeone has claimed on the eve of their Champions League semi-final.<\/p>\n
Alvarez, 26, has scored 20 times across 52 appearances for Atleti this season and is due to line up against the Gunners in the opening leg of their last-four clash at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Alvarez has been linked with a move to north London and when asked about Arsenal’s possible interest in the former Manchester City striker, Simeone replied: “I am not in Julian Alvarez’s head.<\/p>\n
“I just suppose it is normal. He is an extraordinary player. There is interest from Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and other teams. But it is nothing we are concerned about.”<\/p>\n
Arsenal signed Viktor Gyokeres for \u00a364m last summer and, despite hitting 18 goals so far in his debut campaign, he has struggled for consistency.<\/p>\n
Gyokeres was benched for Arsenal’s top-of-the-table clash with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium earlier this month, and then again in their following fixture at home to Newcastle last weekend.<\/p>\n
However, Kai Havertz picked up an injury in the opening half of Arsenal’s win, and he did not train at London Colney on Tuesday, meaning Gyokeres will likely start in Madrid.<\/p>\n
After seeing off Tottenham in the round of 16, Atleti beat Barcelona to secure their place in the semi-finals. But Simeone’s side have lost six of their last nine games.<\/p>\n
Like Arsenal, Atleti have never won the Champions League, and Simeone continued; “In terms of pressure, I don’t feel the pressure and it is exciting to be as close as we are and we have never achieved it before.<\/p>\n
“It is a special excitement. Leadership defines these games and we need to be ready and take the game to where we believe we can punish them. We will have a very tough game, against a fantastic rival and we are very excited about it.”<\/p>\n
Atleti captain Koke, whose contract expires at the end of the season, is set for his fourth and possibly last Champions League semi-final, with the Spanish club.<\/p>\n
He said: “In the lead-up to these games, we are always excited. We feel butterflies in our stomach. It is just like a first date. Then once you start warming up it is all gone, it is just a football game, and you would be as excited as you would be for any semi-final.<\/p>\n
“We expect a very strong Arsenal side and this is a Champions League semi-final and that is how we approach it.” <\/p>\n
Watch Atletico Madrid v Arsenal in the Champions League semi-finals on Wednesday from 7.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app<\/p>\n
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Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal want to sign Atletico Madrid forward Julian Alvarez, head coach Diego Simeone has claimed on the eve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-421912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}