{"id":537928,"date":"2026-07-07T18:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537928\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T18:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T18:58:08","slug":"transfer-news-arsenal-set-to-sign-meslier-on-free-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537928\/","title":{"rendered":"Transfer news: Arsenal set to sign Meslier on free transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> are set to complete the signing of goalkeeper Illan Meslier on a free transfer from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/leeds-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leeds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c0ey55j8x0do\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BBC Sport were first to reveal the Gunners&#8217; interest in Meslier<\/a> on 30 June and an agreement has now been reached.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meslier and his representatives were at the club&#8217;s training centre in Hertfordshire to complete the finer details of the move and undergo a medical on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 26-year-old, who has lost his place as number one at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/leeds-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leeds<\/a>, is out of contract this summer and therefore available on a free transfer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is a doubt over current second-choice keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga&#8217;s future heading into next season, resulting in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a> exploring the market for a replacement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As things stand Meslier will arrive as third-choice goalkeeper behind David Raya and Arrizabalaga.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But if Arrizabalaga does depart, then Meslier could be promoted into the number two role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Meslier&#8217;s imminent arrival will see teenage goalkeeper Tommy Setford leave on loan this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal are set to complete the signing of goalkeeper Illan Meslier on a free transfer from Leeds. BBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-537928","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\/537928","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=537928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}