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Arsenal ‘Make Formal Offer’ To Long-Term Target – Reports

By on July 23, 2014

Some intriguing reports coming out of Spain today with El Confidentcial claiming that Arsenal have made a formal offer to Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas.

The newspaper suggests that Arsene Wenger has been in touch with the Spanish legend and promised him the No.1 shirt at Arsenal IF he persuades Madrid to rip up his contract and allow him to leave for nothing this summer.

The Spanish outlet states that due to the 33-year-old’s high wages, the boss isn’t prepared to pay any transfer fee so insists he has to break free from his current deal at the Bernabeu to make a free transfer move to north London.

These reports come just days after speculation suggested that Madrid bosses were contemplating allowing Casillas to leave for nothing this summer, as they are keen to get his wages off the books following the £10m signing of Keylor Navas.

We’ve been linked with Casillas for over 12 months so our apparent interest shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, the timing is certainly interesting as the report from El Confidencial comes amid speculation claiming that we’ve agreed a deal to sign David Ospina.

Widespread media on Tuesday stated that the Colombian is due to undergo a medical and complete a move next week after we agreed a £3.5m fee with his current club, Nice.

There is no chance we’re going to sign both Casillas and Ospina, so Arsene must be negotiating more than one deal before deciding on which one to go with. Alternatively, the newspapers are talking rubbish!

The most likely deal is certainly Ospina and my personal opinion is El Confidencial are working from old news. We might have made such an offer to Casillas a few weeks ago, but I think we’re now far more advanced with the Ospina deal and there is little chance anything will happen with Casillas unless things change drastically over the next few days.

Probably just as well as Casillas has looked a shadow of his former self over the past 12 months, whereas Ospina is a real up-and-coming goalkeeper who’s been showing some excellent form of late. I’m really excited by his arrival and think he’s going to provide some real competition to Szczesny for the first team shirt next season.