According the Daily Telegraph, we have reached a £16m agreement to bring Sokratis Papastathopoulos to The Emirates, this comes hot on the news heels of the news that Stephan Lichsteiner has already arrived this week from Juventus.
Lichsteiner arrived this week to join Swiss team mate Granit Xhaka on a free transfer and new Manager Unai Emery is wasting no time rebuilding our depleted defence. The Swiss side had a scare last week with Xhaka getting stretchered out of training ahead of the World Cup which starts next week, for all of the latest and best odds, visit sport.netbet.co.uk.
Sokratis will be joining us from Borussia Dortmund, and the 29 year old will be a straight replacement for Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny in the heart of the defence. Per joins the coaching staff, while Koscielny’s injured ankle sees him miss France’s World Cup campaign and most of our league season before it’s even begun.
Our other senior Centre Back Shkodran Mustafi ended the season in terrible form, so our central defensive area is in dire need of a shake up, and the signing of Papastathopoulos will give us a good place to start. We also still have Chambers and Holding as backup, but the pair are still a little way off a starting berth, in the league at least.
29-year-old Papastathopoulos has made almost 80 appearances for Greece and joined Dortmund from Bremen back in 2013. The Grecian will be reunited with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan who he played with for Dortmund under our new Head of Recruitment, Sven Mislintat, who is playing a big part in piecing next season’s squad together.
New Manager Emery is sticking to his word of helping to bring some youth through, and the Telegraph also report that we are close to signing 17-year-old PSG midfielder Yacine Adli, a young player who’s being tipped as a very hot prospect.
Despite no official confirmation as yet, reliable French Sports paper RMC claim that a deal is done, with Arsenal said to be paying a relatively small compensation fee, thought to be around £230,000 for the youngster.
Here Come the Belgians!
Other rumour doing the rounds are that we are said to be interested in Man United’s haphazard elbow merchant, the Belgian; Marouane Feillani.
99% of Arsenal fans would definitely NOT welcome the arrival of the microphone-haired liability, but one Arsenal Legend, Robert Pires would, he said:
“He’s a talented player. I know him. He has very good quality, he’s very fast with the ball. Sometimes he can score. I know Emery likes this type of player. I don’t know what’s happening but if he joined Arsenal, I think he would be a good player for the new squad…”
Fellaini is out of contract in the coming weeks and has rejected a new deal at Old Trafford and would be seen as many Arsenal fans as a real step backwards if he was to join Emery’s army. With Papastathopoulos, Lichsteiner and Adli we are doing a great job with the squad, but most Arsenal fans (including me) are still waiting for a couple of ‘wow signings’ as the summer ticks past.
