Arsenal offer 4 players in James Maddison transfer pursuit

Arsenal Have to Sell Or Risk Another Late Show

While we all dream of the idea of Arsenal having £60m lying around ready to be spent, that sadly isn’t the case.

Yet to sanction a single permanent sale, talk of Newcastle stumping up £22m for Willock suddenly looks increasingly enticing. That would almost certainly go down as Arsenal’s biggest sale of the summer and theoretically cuts Maddison’s fee by a third.

Interestingly, all of this has picked up since it came to light that Granit Xhaka will be staying in north London. Having resisted Roma’s weak £13m approaches, a decision has been made to commit to the Swiss and avoid forking out what would likely have been around £35m for a replacement.

Due to that, there can be investment elsewhere, therefore the timing of this Maddison move picking up won’t be a major coincidence.

Nevertheless, more sales have to take place. Well, any sales, for that matter.

Willock could be joined by Alexandre Lacazette and Hector Bellerin, as well as the three others offered in this deal, so that Arsenal can supplement their budget. They have to sell for the cash injection as well as freeing up wages and space in the squad.

Therefore, what may come of this move is that Arsenal either back away immediately and move on to other targets or speed up (if they can actually go any faster) the outgoings. This window isn’t a case of focusing on one aspect at a time but they run the risk of this move going down to the wire before Leicester shut the door firmly and leave Arsenal in a precarious late position.

Knowing they can’t sweet talk the Foxes into accepting their below average players, it’s cough up or shut up. In the coming days Arsenal may move away from this deal entirely. Either that or they have to sell, and fast.