Arsenal to sell seven players in the summer as £340m-worth of signings hit the ‘scrapheap’
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is ready to sell seven players in the summer transfer market as he continues to improve his squad, according to reports.
The Gunners are having a brilliant season in the Premier League with Arteta’s currently on course to win the title if they keep up their current form.
Arsenal are eight points ahead of second-placed Manchester City – who have a game in hand on the leaders – with ten matches to play.
And Arsenal will be hoping that by winning the title and claiming Champions League qualification will help them attract an even better calibre of player to the club in the summer transfer window.
But the Gunners will also be looking to sell a number of players to reduce their squad and The Sun claims that Arsenal are ‘ready to ditch £72million club record signing Nicolas Pepe’ as well as six other players.
After failing to make a big impact at Arsenal in three seasons at the Emirates Stadium, Arteta allowed him to join Ligue 1 side Nice on loan until the end of the season.
But he has hardly set the world alight back in France with Pepe contributing six goals and zero assists in 18 appearances in all competitions.
The Sun add that Pepe is ‘not part of Mikel Arteta’s plans’ moving forward with the Gunners looking to get his £140,000-a-week salary off their wage bill this summer.
Arsenal are ‘almost resigned to having to pay at least part of the £7million he is still due from his contract’ with wages proving a big ‘stumbling block’ to any permanent sale.
Since Arteta was appointed in December 2019, ‘£340m-worth of signings’ will have been ‘allowed to depart for nothing’ if Pepe ‘joins them on the scrapheap’.
The Sun continue by claiming Arsenal are ‘ready to listen to offers for Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Sambi Lokonga, Nuno Tavares, Pablo Mari, Cedric Soares and Alex Runarsson but know that few of that list are likely to attract substantial bids’.
One player Arsenal have been linked with is Napoli winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia but Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio claims any move is unlikely this summer.
Di Marzio told Kelbet: “I don’t think that Kvaratskhelia can leave Napoli now and go to Arsenal. He has only been there for one season and it’s really unlikely that the club will sell him already now.
“Napoli definitely needs to keep him for at least one more season and then he could leave.
“If they sell Osimhen for €150 million they are more than happy and then they don´t need to sell Kvaratskheila.”
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