Arsenal eye staggering £50m Ben White summer transfer

Arsenal continue to be linked with numerous centre-backs to the point where you wonder if Mikel Arteta is just going to sell all he has and start afresh. It’s become an integral area of the pitch to strengthen for the manager, who has now turned his sights to players closer to home.

William Saliba is returning and the Arsenal population want him to be starting every Premier League game from now until he retires. Arteta would probably fancy the same: he cost £27m, will (quite cleverly) class as homegrown and would lose the need to bring in another signing.

With him having but a few months to keep his job, he likelihood of him pinning his hopes on a 20-year-old without a single minute of senior English football to his name to sit alongside a similarly young Gabriel is near non-existent. Saliba may blow Arteta away and force himself to start – which everyone wants – but realism presides.

Thus, as has been widely reported, another centre-back is being eyed up this summer. Most of whom seem well beyond the Gunners’ reach. Financially, the £50m+ quotes for the likes of Edmond Tapsoba and French wonderkid Jules Kounde come across as pursuits worth ending early. Both are exceptional talents and would walk into the first team, yet both are also being tracked by sides in the Champions League with greater financial power behind them.

Arsenal eye staggering £50m Ben White summer transfer with Mikel Arteta eyeing other cheaper centre-backs in summer transfer window

Someone will arrive this summer if Arteta has his way and the rumour mill has coughed up another unlikely, but outstanding, candidate: Ben White.

Having been called up to England’s Euro 2020 squad (what coincidental timing for transfer links!), the Mirror and others have listed Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United are interested parties for the hugely talented defender.

Shooting to prominence in the 2019/20 campaign, White played an integral role on loan in Leeds’ promotion to the Premier League where he earned the club’s Young Player of the Year and was named in the Championship PFA Team of the Season.

Efforts were made from Marcelo Bielsa’s side to sign him permanently, but Brighton stood firm and kept him on.

Operating in a back three for the Seagulls, White has also dabbled with central midfield where he held an interesting partnership with none other than Yves Bissouma. His performances across the season earned him yet another club Player Of The Season gong.

Arteta is a big fan (who isn’t?) and upon the Euros concluding, or at least England being eliminated, a move is mooted. Would it be the right one?

Continued…