£50 million offer for striker confirmed as Mikel Arteta finally set to complete his dream Arsenal transfer in few days
Crystal Palace tried to sign Eddie Nketiah on loan this month, with an obligation to buy in the summer, FootballTransfers has learned.
FootballTransfers exclusively revealed that Palace wanted to sign Arsenal’s reserve striker at the end of 2023 and that the Gunners were willing to release him under the right circumstances.
Those circumstances would certainly include Arsenal signing a replacement for Nketiah before releasing him.
However, we have revealed that Arsenal rejected Crystal Palace’s first offer.
Now FootballTransfers has learned that Palace have offered a loan with an obligation to buy in the summer.
Arsenal are still not close to signing a striker in this window, so a possible sale of Nketiah is out of the question at the moment.
The Gunners have shortlisted several top strikers, including Juventus’ Dusan Vlahovic, Napoli’s Victor Osimhen and Brentford’s Ivan Toney. All three players will be very difficult to sign in January.
However, Arsenal are not ruling out the possibility that any of them could still arrive late in the window.
For this to happen, Arsenal need to get rid of players to bring in money and reduce wage costs.
Nketiah himself earns around £100,000 a week, which is too much for a third choice striker.
Nketiah at Arsenal
The 24-year-old Nketiah has been at Arsenal since 2015, when he joined as a youth player from Chelsea.
He made his debut in the 2017/18 season and has made 157 appearances and scored a total of 38 goals.
However, Nketiah has not been productive enough to suggest that he could be the first choice for Mikel Arteta’s charges.
He has never scored more than five goals in a Premier League season, although he did score ten goals in all competitions in the 2021-22 season.
The number 9 position has been problematic for Arsenal over the past 18 months, as even first choice Gabriel Jesus has struggled to score regularly enough in the back of the net.
Arsenal are in a period of poor form and have won just once in their last seven games in all competitions.
As a result, they have slipped from the top of the table to fourth place.
