If you’ve seen news somewhere that Napoli, who have been chasing Sokratis Papastathopoulos lately, were interested in Jason Denayer, that appears to be true.
However, if you’re an Arsenal fan worried this may scupper a deal for the Greek centre-back, that’s not the case.
This is because, at least according to Gazzetta dello Sport, the Belgian ‘remains the alternative to Sokratis Papastathopoulos’, who is said to be the ‘first on the list of defenders suggested by [Gennaro] Gattuso to his director of football’.
That’s due to the pair knowing each other well from their time at Milan as players, and while previous reports claimed the former Borussia Dortmund man was trying to free himself of his contract, the Italian newspaper explain today that Arsenal are ‘asking for €8m’.
It’s then pointed out ‘the agreement won’t be a problem’, although they don’t make it clear whether that’s the agreement between the Gunners and Napoli or Sokratis and the Italian club.
Either way, they don’t think he’ll be leaving on a free just yet.
Corriere del Mezzogiorno and Il Mattino, on the other hand, do.
The first of the two state the defender is ‘negotiating his contract termination with Arsenal’ and, once that’s done, would then be ‘ready to sign a two year contract with an option of a third at €2.5m/year’.
As for Il Mattino, they believe the ‘deal is done’ for Sokratis who ‘will free himself’ and ‘will sign a two year contract worth €3.5m/year’.
A lot of contrasting information here, so it’s worth waiting a little bit more before jumping to conclusions, but it seems the Arsenal defender is on his way out this summer.
Whether it’s for some money or for free, however, remains to be seen.
