Arsenal ‘planning shock bid’ for €30m-rated ex-Chelsea forward

Lewis Oldham
Arsenal target Morata

According to reports, Arsenal are ‘planning a shock bid’ for former Chelsea forward Alvaro Morata, who is rated at around €30m.

After the striker enjoyed positive spells with Juventus and Real Madrid, Chelsea splashed out £60m to sign him ahead of the 2017/18 campaign.

Morata scored eleven goals in the Premier League during his debut season. He then added five more from his 16 appearances up until January in 2018/19.


Premier League winners and losers


The Spaniard was loaned out to Atletico Madrid in January 2019. This move was made permanent in 2020 as they paid around £58m for him.

Morata has been on loan at Juventus since the start of the 2020/21 season. He has netted five goals from his 25 outings in Serie A this term.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang left Arsenal to join Barcelona earlier this month. Meanwhile, Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah are out of contract in June.

Calciomercato (via FourFourTwo) are reporting that Arsenal are ‘planning a shock’ move for Morata this summer. The player is said to be ‘open’ to returning to England.

Juventus ‘are not interested’ in signing him permanently. It is believed that Arsenal would need to pay €30m (around £25m) to sign him from Atletico Madrid.

Elsewhere, Roy Keane expects Man Utd to be “fine for fourth” after they beat Leeds 4-2 at Elland Road on Sunday afternoon.

Tottenham sit in eighth – six points behind the Red Devils – but, like Arsenal, they have three games in hand on Man Utd with Wolves also having two games to spare on Ralf Rangnick’s men.

However, former Man Utd midfielder Keane is not worried that the Red Devils will miss out and is backing them to finish fourth and regroup in the summer under a new manager.

“I think United will be fine for fourth, I really do,” Keane said on Sky Sports.

“There’s been lots of noises about players wanting to leave. The contract situations with Pogba and Jesse Lingard, and people like that.

“Focus on the next few months, big few months for Man United, try and get fourth.

“They’ve a big European game coming up, focus on that, and then regroup again in the summer regarding obviously a manager, they’ll be looking at recruitment, but keep their heads and keep focused and they should be okay.”

Fellow pundit Jamie Redknapp agreed with Keane, he added: “They had a good result [against Brentford] but I wouldn’t put them… I’ve got to be honest I don’t think they’ll make top four. I’ll have to agree with Roy in this case.”