Arsenal are reportedly leading the hunt to acquire the signature of French attacker Ousmane Dembele from Barcelona during the summer.
The 20-year-old is said to be ‘fed up’ with his time at the Catalan giants after failing to command a regular role, and he could be open to pursuing a fresh challenge in a new league.
According to Don Balon, the Gunners are supposedly leading the hunt for the former Rennes man, who has been identified as one of the targets for their ‘new project’ this summer.
Arsene Wenger’s side already have plenty of quality attackers in the form of Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in their ranks, but Dembele would surely add more quality with his pace and trickery.
Arsenal have broken their transfer record in each of the previous two transfer windows, and as per Don Balon, they may have to break the feat once more in the summer – considering Barca are reluctant to let the player leave for anything less than the £97m spent on his signature 10 months ago.
Dembele has made just 11 La Liga appearances for Barcelona this term, and much of this has resulted from a thigh injury which saw him sidelined for most of the first half of the season.
However, his situation has not improved significantly since his comeback, and he is clearly discontent after finding himself an unused substitute in two of Barcelona’s previous three Champions League outings.
Spending vast sums on attacking talents has been a norm with the club in recent years, but the hierarchy may need to place more focus on the defensive department, which has underperformed this term.
Laurent Koscielny has not looked the defender of old since the start of the current campaign, and a new centre-back should be earmarked as the first target, considering Shkodran Mustafi has likewise had issues with his positioning.
