Arsenal hoping for huge £20m transfer cash injection

Crystal Palace Willing to Pay £10m for Nketiah – Arsenal Want £20m

Arsenal have decided to slap a valuation of around £20m (which would be hugely beneficial this window) on Nketiah, whereas Palace are sat ready to pay half of that at £10m.

An unnamed club in Germany are also willing to match that figure with that same club already seeing two approaches knocked back by Arsenal this summer.

Somebody may give Arsenal a little wake up call: £20m for Nketiah is a figure few, if any, sides will cough up. It would be remarkable if that fee made its way over to north London with the centre-forward heading in the other direction.

The clock is ticking on the summer transfer window. Little over a week remains.

While it is entirely understandable that Arsenal want to extract as much value as they can for an academy product who has England Under-21 pedigree, is homegrown, young, and has plenty of Premier League experience, to set their stall out at £20m in the current market and based on Nketiah’s form over the past 12 months – including him barely playing, being so far down the pecking order at the club and having less than a year left on his deal – are demands beyond his worth.

One can hope this is the start of negotiations and an eventual lowering (or respective raising) of the valuation will come, but with so little time left of the window and Nketiah being up for sale ever since turning down the contract, it seems like a stretch.

If he had signed a new deal and was made available 12 months later, would Arsenal really be asking for more than £20m? That’s a question they aren’t asking themselves. The answer is no.

Being realistic, £15m is at the absolute top end of what they can be hoping for. If it’s more than that then hats off to them, but they aren’t exactly in a position of power to be wanting double what Palace are willing to pay right now.

Nketiah should have gone on loan back in January, or indeed been sold, when there was interest, and having barely kicked a ball for the first team since with his deal into its final year, Arsenal’s handling of the situation hasn’t given them much of a leg to stand on.

Knowing their is firm interest – Palace have £10m waiting to be parted with – they can’t let this opportunity slip. One can hope negotiations will see some sense come and an amicable meeting somewhere in the middle can be found. As it is though, £20m comes across as steep.