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Ornstein: Arsenal arranging medical after agreeing to pay Partey’s £45m clause
According to David Ornstein, Arsenal are making arrangement for a medical to take place in Spain after informing Thomas Partey we’ll trigger his £45m release clause.
Arsenal have been trying to bring in a new midfielder all summer and Partey has been touted by several media outlets as one of Mikel Arteta’s prime targets in recent months.
It looked like a potential deal was off the table as Atletico Madrid refused to negotiate and insisted Arsenal had to meet the midfielders £45m [€50m] release clause – something we appeared reluctant to do.
However, it looks like we’ve finally made our move as The Athletic journalist David Ornstein is one of several respected reporters claiming that Arsenal have now agreed to meet Partey’s release fee.
Ornstein says we’ve informed the 27-year-old’s representatives that we’ll pay the money and arrangements are now being made for Partey to undergo a medical in Spain.
He tweeted:
🚨 Arsenal make late move to sign Thomas Partey from Atletico Madrid. Contacted 27yo camp expressing intention to pay clause. #AFC making all necessary arrangements (medical in Spain etc) + optimistic. Credit @charles_watts
More @TheAthleticUK #AFC https://https://t.co/cXRG5rRfn5— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) October 5, 2020
Wow! So it looks like Arsenal have waited until we could offload some fringe players before making our move for Partey. With Matteo Guendouzi off to Hertha Berlin on loan and Lucas Torreira joining Atletico Madrid, we freed-up enough wages to afford the Ghanaian.
Let’s hope the deal goes through without any complications as Partey should prove to be an excellent addition to the squad. He’s a powerful midfielder who will be a huge upgrade on the likes of Torreira or Mo Elneny.
However, I still worry about Arsenal’s lack of creativity in midfield. Aouar would have helped solved that issue but that deal looks to be off. Let’s hope we have a surprise up our sleeve or Arteta may need to swallow his pride and bring Ozil back into the fold…
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