Arsenal
Arsenal hope player offer will be enough to seal deal to sign £100k-a-week target
Arsenal ready to use Ainsley Maitland-Niles or Reiss Nelson as bait to sign Leicester City playmaker James Maddison this summer
Arsenal are willing to offer Leicester City several fringe players as they look to agree a player-plus-cash swap deal for James Maddison this summer, according to the Daily Mail.
Mikel Arteta has already been busy strengthening his ranks with the arrivals of young duo Nuno Tavares and Albert Lokonga as he looks to revamp his squad following an eighth placed finish in the Premier League last season.
However, the Gunners boss is expected to bring in further new additions over the coming weeks and another No.10 is desperately needed after Martin Odegaard returned to Real Madrid following a loan spell.
Maddison has emerged as a prime target to replace the Norwegian international with the Daily Mail claiming Arteta has identified the Leicester City playmaker as the man he wants to add more creativity to his squad.
The newspaper says a £50m offer won’t be enough to get a deal agreed so Arsenal are ready to offer Leicester a number of fringe players to try and tempt the Foxes into a player-plus-cash swap deal.
Two players named in the report as possible make-weights are Reiss Nelson and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Leicester showed an interest in Maitland-Niles back in January so Arsenal could use him to sweeten the deal for Maddison.
It remains to be seen how receptive Leicester will be to such an offer and although negotiations are likely to be difficult, the Daily Mail says Arsenal beleive the Foxes are prepared to negotiate the sale of Maddison this summer.
The 24-year-old has been a key player at the King Power since arriving from Norwich City in 2018 and was rewarded for his fine form with a long-term contract worth £100,000-a-week last summer [source: Daily Mail].
However, Maddison struggled to regain his first team place when he returned from a hip injury during the second half of last season and the report says he was ‘hugely disappointed’ to be left out of Brendan Rodgers’ starting eleven in the FA Cup final.
Arsenal are now trying to take advantage of the situation by offering Maddison a fresh start at the Emirates Stadium where he’d be guaranteed regular first team football under Arteta and no doubt he’d also get a hefty wage increase to boot.
We’ll have to wait and see how things develop over the coming weeks but I think Maddison would be an excellent signing for Arsenal if they could pull it off and he’d prove to be a superb replacement for Odegaard.
