Don't Miss

Arsenal Refuse To Meet £50m Asking Price, Turn To Other Targets

By mac14 on June 12, 2015

According to the Evening Standard, Arsenal will refuse to meet Liverpool’s £50m asking price for Raheem Sterling and will turn their attention to other targets.

News broke this morning that Manchester City had opened the bidding for want-away Sterling with a £25m plus £5m in add ons offer.

That bid was rejected immediately with Liverpool reportedly setting the asking price at closer to £50m for the 20-year-old attacker.

Arsenal have been watching developments from the sidelines but the Evening Standard claim that Arsene Wenger is refusing to be drawn into a bidding war so is ready to focus on other targets.

Arsene hinted last month that he wouldn’t be paying “stratospheric numbers” for players and with the boss looking to strengthen several positions this summer, we can’t spend £50m on Sterling as that would blow the majority of our budget.

The newspaper says that unless Liverpool lower their asking price, the only way Sterling will be heading to the Emirates is if the Merseysiders put forward a player-plus-cash swap deal – but no such proposal has been put on the table as yet.

Theo Walcott has been touted as a potential make-weight in any deal, but I’d personally prefer to keep hold of Theo – unless he refuses to sign a new contract this summer.

So it seems that as it stands, Sterling won’t be coming to Arsenal this summer. I can’t see Liverpool selling him for much less than £40m at least, and City will be prepared to pay that kind of money.

He’s not worth even close to that but if City are stupid enough to pay it, good luck to them. We don’t desperately need Sterling and have greater priorities to worry about, so I think it’s the correct call to walk away.