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Arsenal to launch late £25m bid to sign World Cup star, Mustafi sale could fund swoop

By on August 4, 2018

According to the Sun via TeamTalk, Arsenal are ready to launch a late £25m bid to sign Besiktas defender Domagoj Vida and could sell Shkodran Mustafi to help fund the move.

Uni Emery has already splashed out around £18m on the signing of centre-back Sokratis from Borussia Dortmund while right-back Stephan Lichtsteiner has arrived on a free transfer from Juventus.

However, the boss is seemingly keen to further strengthen our defence before the window slams shut on Thursday evening and Vida has emerged as a potential target.

TeamTalk are citing a report from the Sun that claims Arsenal are ready to launch a £25m bid to sign the Croatian international after Emery identified him as the man to tighten our backline.

The newspaper says Liverpool, Everton and West Ham are also showing a keen interest in Vida but Arsenal hope to trump their rivals with a formal swoop before Thursday’s deadline.

The 29-year-old only joined Besiktas from Dinamo Kiev in January but he enjoyed an excellent World Cup after playing a key role in helping Croatia reach their first ever final.

Besiktas could now decide to cash-in on his exploits in Russia by accepting Arsenal’s bid when we come calling, however, we still need to raise some extra money in order to be able to afford the swoop.

Emery has already blown the majority of his initial £70m budget so he needs to sell before he can buy and the report says Arsenal could sell Mustafi or even Danny Welbeck to fund our move for Vida.

Obviously if we’re looking to sign another centre-back then it would make sense to offload Mustafi and reports suggest he’s on the market for around £22m – which would cover the majority of Vida’s fee.

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So we could see Mustafa-out and Vida-in over the coming days. I’m not convinced the Croatian star is the answer to all our problems but he’d probably be an upgrade on Mustafi.