As covered by us in the past week, Arsenal’s interest in Benfica winger Andrija Zivkovic has been getting quite a lot of mentions in the Portuguese press lately.
Arsene Wenger’s admiration for the player was first reported over a year ago, and since then, most of the times the Gunners have a scout watching Benfica, the Portuguese press claim it’s a mission for Zivkovic.
There’s been an insistence that Arsenal are keen, and it’s something which has come more to the boil recently.
Talks for the Serbian player have never been reported, so there wasn’t much to say about his chances of leaving the Lisbon side, except for his €60m release clause.
As Benfica often push for the clauses to sell, especially when negotiating with big clubs, it was easy to assume that’s what they would do in case Arsenal came for Zivkovic.
But maybe things won’t be so hard for the Gunners.
According to Correio da Manhã, €30m will be needed to take the player from Benfica. It’s even claimed this price was ‘increased’, due to the good performances from the winger lately.
But the Portuguese side are not planning to sell him before the World Cup, as they believe the tournament could make his price higher. So this is a price-tag that may be changed in July.
Meanwhile, we still have to wait for Arsenal to decide if they really want him or if they will keep observating for another season. But with other clubs’ interest being reported, it’s probably time to make a choice whether to go for him or not.
