Arsenal Table Late Bid For Matija Nastasic

Transfer deadline day has arrived and managers are desperately trying to tie-up those last minute deals, so we’ll bring you all the latest news and gossip. Today, Arsenal make late offer to Man City for Matija Nastasic.

Arsenal have tabled a late bid for Manchester City centre-back Matija Nastasic as Arsene Wenger desperately tries to bring in a defender during the closing stages of the transfer window, according to reports.

Speculation on Monday morning suggested that we had opened talks with City over the Serbian international, with the Citizens understood to be open to the idea of letting the youngster leave in order to help them comply with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play guidelines.

It seems with less than an hour remaining in the transfer window, Arsene Wenger decided to make his interest official with Goal’s chief correspondent Wayne Veysey claiming on Twitter that we tabled a bid for the 21-year-old.

The exact amount of the supposed offer wasn’t disclosed, but Veysey suggested that City had previously quoted at least £10m during negotiations earlier in the day. The journalist goes on to suggest that we’ve lined-up Celtic’s Virgil van Dijk as a potential fall-back option should we fail to get a deal agreed for Nastasic.

Arsenal have tabled a bid tonight for Matija Nastasic. #MCFC were quoting £10m-plus fee in talks earlier.

— Wayne Veysey (@wayneveysey) September 1, 2014

Arsenal are looking at Celtic's Virgil van Dijk as an eleventh-hour alternative to Nastasic.

— Wayne Veysey (@wayneveysey) September 1, 2014

Nastasic arrived at the Eithad Stadium in 2012 with a reputation as one of the best up-and-coming defenders in Europe and he lived up to that tag during his debut season in the Premier League before injury restricted him to just 13 league appearances last year.

However, the arrival of Eliaquim Mangala from Porto has seen him fall down Manuel Pellegrini’s pecking order and it seems we’re keen to offer him a fresh start at the Emirates.

It remains to be seen whether we’ll be able to get a deal agreed at this late stage, but Nastaic would be an excellent signing for the club. We desperately need another centre-back as we only currently have Calum Chambers as back-up to Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker so fingers crossed we can get someone in tonight.