“One is well underway” – Club chief admits receiving offers for player after claims of Arsenal bid

Earlier on Thursday, we covered a story claiming that Arsenal might be moving on from Manuel Locatelli, who prefers a move to Juventus.

The return of rumours involving Houssem Aouar haven’t helped that, and Tuttosport believed the Gunners were making the Lyon playmaker a ‘priority’.

There have been multiple reports that Arsenal have already made an offer for Locatelli, but Gazzetta dello Sport stated the player was ignoring the London club’s directors, who had been trying to contact him.

This all pointed towards Juventus being the favourites, with the midfielder wanting to stay in Italy, and that’s somewhat been confirmed by Giovanni Carnevali, Sassuolo’s CEO, who spoke about the matter on Thursday.

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Asked about the Locatelli situation, he said, relayed by Calciomercato: “We are enjoying the moment of the national team. We’ll talk about him when the Euros end, we want to leave him calm until Sunday. For Locatelli, we have received important offers, among these one is well underway.

“With Juventus, we met and we gave each other an appointment next week, but it’s all to be evaluated. Today, the Italian market has great difficulties. Offers come from abroad, and it’s clear that we have played who are wanted by big clubs”.

The line about Juventus and it ‘all needing to be evaluated’ suggests they aren’t the club with talks ‘well underway’.

So, who is? Is it Arsenal? If so, then the fact a new appointment with the Turin club being scheduled while the other talks are advancing but not completed does suggest Locatelli would rather stay in Italy if possible.

We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s certainly very interesting.