Serie A star still prefers Arsenal despite Tottenham coming ‘several times’ to watch him

Joe Williams
Arsenal target Morten Hjulmand watches play

Tottenham are monitoring Lecce midfielder Morten Hjulmand ahead of a potential summer move but he would prefer a move to Arsenal, according to reports.

Spurs are looking to strengthen their midfield in the summer transfer window with a couple of injuries exposing their lack of depth in the middle of the park.

And Italian publication Calciomercato claim that Tottenham ‘have come several times to see’ the Danish midfielder with Borussia Dortmund attending the same matches.

They add that Italian giants Roma have ‘inquired’ about Hjulmand while fellow Serie A side Juventus ‘like him’ with his price tag set at €15m.

Hjulmand moved from Austrian side Admira Wacker to Lecce in 2021 and has now made 80 league appearances for the Italians, while he has also earned 11 Denmark under-21 appearances.

Addressing the rumours about his future, Hjulmand told reporters: “For the moment I’m not thinking about it, I’m focused on Lecce and I don’t read the newspapers.”

A report back in February by Gazzetta dello Sport (via Sport Witness) claims that the Dane had ‘Vieira’s poster in his room as a child’ and that ‘his preferences are no mystery’.

Arsenal are his dream move and that he even has the Premier League club’s badge ‘tattooed on his left shoulder’.

A move to Arsenal is now an attractive proposition for most players with Mikel Arteta guiding his side to first place in the Premier League table.

However, the Gunners were knocked out of the Europa League on penalties by Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night with Martin Keown calling it a potential “blessing”.

When asked whether it could be a blessing in disguise for their title chances, Arteta told reporters: “I cannot see it that way today. I don’t know, if you go through the competition and win it, it’s magnificent, if it’s not, then it affects your plans in the league, that’s a different story.

“We wanted to go through and we put everything into it, the effort the boys put when it wasn’t our best day, individually and collectively, the hunger and the desire they showed to win, the way they were tracking back was incredible, they really wanted it and today it didn’t happen.

“We need to put our heads up, look towards Crystal Palace, it’s 11 games left, the first one starts on Sunday.”

On injuries to Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba, Arteta added: “Tomiyasu looks pretty serious, for his reaction straight away and what he said to me. Obviously, it’s very early and difficult to know. William, I don’t know. He had some discomfort and could not carry on, so we had to take him off.”

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