You might have seen a few stories over the past couple of weeks claiming that Arsenal and AS Roma were in talks over some sort of swap deal involving their players.
The Italians are very keen on keeping Henrikh Mkhitaryan beyond the current campaign, but don’t really have the money to match the Gunners’ asking price, so an idea was drawn up with Mino Raiola, the Armenian’s agent, to include Justin Kluivert, another one of his clients, in the transfer.
The original plan was to ask Arsenal to cough up some cash and add Mkhitaryan in exchange for the Dutchman, but that hasn’t gone down well at the Emirates.
According to Corriere della Sera, talks are indeed ongoing regarding a swap deal, but the Gunners ‘don’t intend’ to add cash on top of the former Borussia Dortmund man.
That means they simply want to get Justin Kluivert, who is 21 and has three years left on his contract, in exchange for Mkhitaryan, who is 31 and has one year left on his Arsenal deal.
It’s explained ‘an equal deal is not convenient’ for AS Roma, who will now have to find ‘another solution to satisfy Paulo Fonseca’ if the Gunners don’t budge on their stance.
We’re not sure what’s going on behind the scenes at the Emirates, but surely they can’t believe that’s actually a reasonable trade?
Surely?
