Arsenal: Looks like Gelson Martins wasn’t so easy after all

Arsenal’s pursuit of Gelson Martins was going remarkably swimmingly, but here we have finally hit the first problem – competition.

Arsenal’s all-important transfer window has largely been on hold given the World Cup. They locked up one transfer early, one unaffected by the World Cup, but have since been on a bit of a hiatus regarding any players involved in the competition.

Which includes Gelson Martins. The former Sporting Lisbon man ripped up his contract (it sounds worse than it actually was) following an incident at the training ground and is now a free agent, capable of going wherever he sees fit.

There’s no hiding how big of a deal this is, and how timely too. Arsenal desperately need help from wide angles and they don’t have a lot of money to utilize in procuring that help.

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In fact, they are already over the reported budget just between the people they’ve already announced as well as the pending moves that are supposedly done deals.

Then there are the new contracts being announced that are vital, but also taking chunks out of an already skimpy budget.

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Getting someone young and potentially prolific like Gelson Martins for free would have been monumental, and it still would be, if they can pull it off. But for the first time in their pursuit of him, they’ve hit a bit of a snag.

And as I’ve already covered, the potential fee from ending his contract is not a snag.

What is a snag, however, is when a team that can offer Martins more than what he would be getting at Arsenal comes along. No, not Liverpool. They have more attackers than they know what to do with and Martins would get lost in the shuffle.

Atletico Madrid. The same club that consistently makes the Champions League and just won the Europa League, going through the Gunners in the process.

According to reports, Martins people are in Spain negotiating a deal while Martins himself represents Portugal in the World Cup. As always, reports can be dubious things, but if Atletico Madrid are getting involved, then needless to say the premature celebrations that I was having may have been a bit too, well, premature.

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Nothing is said and done, and they likely won’t be until after the World Cup, as Lucas Torreira has shown us. But it would be a bit of an inconvenience to miss out on Martins, and an inconvenience that might not be able to be made up for.