Speaking recently on the Here We Go podcast, Fabrizio Romano discussed Arsenal’s pursuit of Olympique Lyon midfielder Houssem Aouar.
Making his Lyon debut as an 18-year-old back in 2017, Aouar has gone on to make 139 appearances for the club, scoring 24 goals and providing 27 assists along the way.
Last season, the £44.55 million-rated 22-year-old highly impressed for Lyon, scoring three goals and providing four assists over his 25 appearances in Ligue 1, averaging a WhoScored match rating of 7.02/10 – ranking him as the club’s joint-fourth-best performer in the league.
The midfielder also impressed during Lyon’s run to the semi-finals of the Champions League, scoring one goal and providing four assists over his eight appearances in the competition, averaging a WhoScored match rating of 7.55 – a rating which ranked him as Lyon’s best player in the tournament, according to the website.
And it would seem these impressive performances have caught the eye of Mikel Arteta, with the Arsenal boss said to be extremely keen on adding Aouar to his squad prior to the closure of the summer transfer window, and this potential move is one that Romano discussed on the latest episode of the Here We Go podcast.
He said: “Arsenal are convinced that if they can sell some players – and they have many, [Sead] Kolasinac, Sokratis [Papastathopoulos], [Lucas] Torreira, many players to sell or to loan out [over the] last two weeks [of the transfer winodw] – they can try again for Aouar.
“In this moment, I [feel] it’s complicated because Lyon [are asking] for €60 million, so it’s complicated. But what we can say is that the player would be ready to join [the] Premier League, would be ready to join Arsenal, so the player would like to come to [the] Premier League and to join Arsenal.
“But it’s up to the club, and, at the moment, there are no negotiations, because the last bid from Arsenal was [in] July; they offered [Matteo] Guendouzi as part of the deal, and they did not find an agreement.
“If they sell players, they will try [to sign Aouar] again, I’m convinced.”
Do you think Aouar will be an Arsenal player by the end of the transfer window?
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TIF Thoughts…
From Romano’s comments, it is clear that the journalist is of the belief that should Arsenal be able to shift some of their current playing squad prior to the end of the summer transfer window, they will attempt to get a deal for Aouar done.
Further to this, in what is likely to be delightful news for Arsenal fans hoping for movement on the transfer front, Romano feels that the player is ‘ready to join’ Arteta’s side, so if – and granted, this is a big ‘if’ – the club can find a way to raise the money to meet Lyon’s asking price, which Romano states as €60 million (£54.8 million), then it would seem there is little stopping Aouar becoming an Arsenal player in the very near future.