Amid claims Arsenal and Atletico Madrid have agreed to exchange \u20ac50m plus Viktor Gyokeres for Julian Alvarez, our colleagues over on TEAMtalk have revealed what\u2019s really going on.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no secret Arsenal<\/a> dream of signing Julian Alvarez<\/a>, and they\u2019re not alone in that regard. He\u2019s Barcelona\u2019s top target to replace Robert Lewandowski, and an official \u20ac100m bid has already been turned down.<\/p>\n Real Madrid too have interjected themselves into the mix, with Los Blancos seeing a gigantic \u20ac150m bid knocked back soon after Florentino Perez won re-election as the club\u2019s president.<\/p>\n In truth, Real\u2019s bid was more of a political stunt, with their true top target actually Michael Olise of Bayern Munich and France.<\/p>\n In any case, Atleti laughed off both bids from their bitter rivals and while they fully intend to keep Alvarez, it\u2019d be more palatable selling to Arsenal than Real or Barca.<\/p>\n And overnight, stunning reports out of Spain claimed Arsenal and Diego Simeone\u2019s side had agreed to a swap deal involving Alvarez and Gyokeres<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was claimed Arsenal would send Gyokeres plus \u20ac50m to Atleti in exchange for the Argentine, with the overall value of the deal worth \u20ac150m \/ \u00a3130m.<\/p>\n However, our colleagues over on TEAMtalk have done some digging and their insider, Graeme Bailey, has confirmed no such agreement has been struck<\/a>.<\/p>\n The story doesn\u2019t end there, however, with Bailey noting \u2018lines of communication\u2019 between Arsenal and Atletico Madrid \u2018remain open\u2019.<\/p>\n Arsenal haven\u2019t given up on signing Alvarez this summer, though their ideal aim would be to land the Argentine and retain Gyokeres too, rather than replace him.<\/p>\n Arsenal want Alvarez AND Gyokeres<\/p>\n Bailey explained: \u201cA\u00a0scenario involving Gyokeres currently appears unlikely.<\/p>\n \u201cTEAMtalk understands both Arteta and Berta are huge admirers of Gyokeres and believe the striker still has significant room for development at the Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a strong belief internally that the Sweden international can improve considerably over the coming seasons and become one of the Premier League\u2019s leading forwards.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, Arsenal would be extremely reluctant to involve him in negotiations.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting back to Alvarez, Bailey pointed to Barcelona as being Arsenal\u2019s biggest obstacle in this transfer saga.<\/p>\n Atleti don\u2019t want to sell to a domestic rival, but the player has a clear preference on who he wants to join and it\u2019s the Catalonians<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bailey added: \u201cFor now, though, all roads still lead back to\u00a0Barcelona.<\/p>\n \u201cThat reality is preventing Arsenal from advancing beyond exploratory discussions despite their willingness to strike a deal with Atletico.<\/p>\n MORE ARSENAL COVERAGE ON F365\u2026 \u201cNevertheless, sources insist the Gunners remain very much in the picture.<\/p>\n \u201cShould Alvarez decide that his long-awaited move to Barcelona is no longer achievable, Arsenal are, we are told, best positioned to capitalise.<\/p>\n \u201cThe groundwork has already been laid, dialogue with Atletico remains active and the willingness to do business is there on all sides. The next move, however, rests with Alvarez.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid claims Arsenal and Atletico Madrid have agreed to exchange \u20ac50m plus Viktor Gyokeres for Julian Alvarez, our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[220,218,448,348,61805,50,221,101,56,54,55,321],"class_list":["post-643771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arsenal","tag-football","tag-front-page","tag-home-page","tag-julian-alvarez","tag-news","tag-premier-league","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-viktor-gyokeres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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