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Deal agreed: Arsenal need to hijack £20m deal as key target closes-in on move
Arsenal will have to act fast if they want to sign Caglar Soyuncu as the defender is closing in on a £20m move to Leicester City, according to various reports today.
Unai Emery has already signed Sokratis from Borussia Dortmund but with Laurent Koscielny out with a long-term injury, Calum Chambers loaned to Fulham and Per Mertesacker retired, the boss is in the market for another centre-back.
Soyuncu has been linked with a move to Arsenal throughout the summer window and at one stage it looked like a deal for the Freiburg centre-back was close to being a formality.
The 22-year-old began his career at Altinordu and the clubs president, Mehmet Ozkan, claimed back in June that Soyuncu was expected to join Arsenal this summer and they would take a cut of any transfer fee.
Ozkan is quoted as saying by the Express:
“Caglar Soyuncu is set to join Arsenal. Of course we would make a cut from the transfer if he joins Arsenal.
“Arsenal asked us for data on his time at the club, we have put something together for them which will be handed over.”
Soyuncu fuelled the rumours after claiming that Arsenal ‘were an option’ for him this summer while his agent, Mustafa Dogru, said that Sven Mislintat was a huge fan and we’d held talks over a deal.
Dogru is quoted by the Metro as saying:
‘Sven Mislintat has been keen on Caglar since he was at Borussia Dortmund,’
‘He first scouted him back in Germany. Sven is interested in Caglar, there are concrete talks, all that remains is for a fee to be agreed. We will see what happens next.’
The newspaper suggested that Freiburg have been demanding around £35m for Soyuncu’s signature so Arsenal decided to look elsewhere and we’ve been strongly linked with a £25m swoop for Domagoj Vida recently.
However, it seems Freiburg have lowered their valuation as The Times journalist Gary Jacob claims Leicester have now agreed a £20m deal to sign the promising Turkish international.
Leicester agreed £20m for Caglar Soyuncu, from Freiburg. Was wanted by Arsenal and Filip Benkovic, of Dynamo Zagreb, for a combined £33.5 million https://t.co/HxBAjhqUTw
— Gary Jacob (@garyjacob) August 8, 2018
The defender is now due to undergo his medical and complete a move to the King Power before Thursday evening’s deadline so Arsenal will have to act fast if we want to hijack the deal. And I hope we do.
It seems Vida is the man Emery wants but he’s 29 and I fear we’re basing our interest on a few good games at the World Cup because the Croatian international has been bang average for most of his career.
Soyuncu on the other hand is a highly-rated youngster who has the potential to develop in to a top class centre-back at Arsenal. Vida would be no better than Mustafi and I’d rather we had kept Chambers than sign the Besiktas man.
Emery wants another centre-back so for me, it makes no sense spending around £25m on an average 29-year-old like Vida when we could sign Soyuncu – who was a key target earlier in the summer – for less money. And a lot less than the £35m we were quoted in June.
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