Fellaini Wants £22m Arsenal Move But Gunners Reluctant To Match £100k Wage Demands

With the summer transfer window set to open, there is plenty of gossip doing the rounds in the newspapers so we’ll keep you up-to-date with the latest transfer rumours. Today, more on Arsenal’s proposed move for Marouane Fellaini.

Everton midfielder Marouane Fellaini wants to make a £22m move to Arsenal this summer but the Gunners are so far reluctant to meet the players £100,000-a-week wage demands, according to the Daily Mail.

The report claims that Fellaini is keen to follow striker Gonzalo Higuain to north London this summer – with the Real Madrid man said to be on the verge of a £22m move – but the Belgian’s excessive demands have placed real question marks over any potential deal.

The Mail suggest the 25-year-old wants to up his current £75,000-a-week wages to nearer £100,000-a-week, which would put him on par with the likes of Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski as one of Arsenal’s top earners. Combine a long-term contract with the £22m that it would take to trigger his release clause and suddenly you have a deal potentially worth in the region of £50m and it appears the club are reluctant to make such an outlay on the afro-haired powerhouse.

In addition to his wage demands, the report claims Fellaini also wants assurances from boss Arsene Wenger that he would be played as a central midfielder at Arsenal and not as a second striker as he was last season under David Moyes. This shouldn’t be a problem as it’s highly unlikely the Frenchman planned to use him as anything other than a box-to-box central midfielder at the Emirates.

It seems Wenger is looking to strengthen his midfield options ahead of next season and Fellaini would be an excellent addition in my opinion, and £100,000-a-week is the kind of money we’re going to have to be paying if we want to bring in top drawer players.

With all the promises of ‘loosening the purse-strings’ this summer, I really hope we don’t end up missing out on players like Fellaini, or even Higuain for that matter, because we refused to pay the going rate. Other clubs will be prepared to pay the Belgian international £100,000-a-week, with the Mail suggesting Russian outfit Zenit St Petersburg are ready to flex their financial muscle to land the former Standard Liege ace, so we’ll have to match them if we want to clinch his signature.

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