There has been a new development in the curious case of Valencia defender Shkodran Mustafi and Arsenal fans would be quite happy about it.
According to Plaza Deportiva, Valencia owner Peter Lim has flown from Barcelona, where he was apparently on other business, to London to conclude the defender’s transfer.
Arsenal are ready to buy him, though they are highly unlikely to have this deal over the line in time for Mustafi to play against Liverpool on Sunday.
The Gunners are desperate to land a centre-back after suffering a defensive crisis on the eve of the Premier League season.
Both sides are yet to agree on a transfer fee, likely to be in the region of £25m plus add-ons, but Mustafi’s agent Ali Bulut and father Kujtim have been in London over the past 48 hours where the player’s personal terms were ironed out while Los Che’s billionaire owner Peter Lim has now arrived in London for continued talks with Arsenal officials.
The report claims Lim will meet directly with Gunners manager Arsene Wenger to close the transfer.
There’s every chance that Lim is flying to London to bypass the way the transfer had been working. Whilst the English media had been reporting a deal as close, in Valencia the line was there’d been no official offer.
We signing Mustafi and loaning them Chambers? Holding will have the mandatory first season at Arsenal, while Bielik is probably too young. Chambers could benefit from a loan, and Valencia need the defenders. This could all span out in the next 48 hours.
Worth pointing out he has plenty of business interests in England (though mainly up North), so it’s possible that he’d be flying to London for something completely unrelated to Mustafi.
Right. No guarantee we’ll actually get Mustafi – but we should pretty much know if it’s going to happen by the end of the day.
