Arsenal has been tracking Mikel Merino over the last few weeks, and it seems he piqued their interest with his performance for Spain in Euro 2024.
Merino was one of the midfielders who helped the Spanish national team win the competition and has expressed a desire to move to Arsenal.
Real Sociedad is no longer fighting to keep him as he has decided not to sign a new deal and can leave for free at the end of this season.
Mundo Deportivo released an update on his future, revisiting the period from three months ago when the European league seasons concluded.
The report claims Arsenal tracked Merino for much of the last campaign and approached him about a move to the Emirates in May.
The midfielder agreed to join Mikel Arteta in London, and Arsenal has been following up on that interest since then.
Although they have not made an official bid to his current club, the report states that Sociedad is aware of the ongoing discussions between Arsenal and the midfielder.
The La Liga club is now waiting for the Gunners to make an official bid for his signature to kickstart negotiations.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Merino will be a superb signing for us, and it is great to see that we will have almost no resistance from his club when we step up our interest in his signature.
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All seems very fishy to me – agree with the player then 2.5 months later Arsenal haven’t yet approached Real Sociedad. It either cannot be true or Arsenal have got cold feet and haven’t had the balls to tell him they’ve changed their minds.
Ah, the transfer time of year, when the misinformation, disinformation, and media hype are in full bloom.
I don’t see what benefit there would be for RS to make it up, so I think we have to assume that Arsenal have not actually done anything about negotiating so far. Any prior agreement with the player is, in itself, worthless as long as he’s under an existing contract.
The way this is going, Arsenal may well not sign him (or possibly anyone else) at this snail’s pace speed.
After their majorly spending the combined total sum of money of £69m in tow spents of: £27m and £42m, to make Raya’s loan deal permanent and signed Calafiori.
Arsenal should still have sufficient money left in their this summer transfer kitty. That should make them to sign the midfielder Merino and even sign striker Victor Osimhen. More especially after they had sold ESR to Fulham for £34m this summer. And anticipatedly, they are expected to sell or loan out their Nkethia, Nelson and possibly Tierney to make money or free up funds.
So, let us wait to see what next move that Arsenal will make. For, I personally do believe that they will sign a new striker, midfielder, and right winger before this summer window closes. And Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly could all be promoted to the first team squad next season.
This is a strange one it seems like it should be easy to do but for some reason, we haven’t actually bid for the player and then there’s Zubimendi who we chased for three years and is now not the target. Pure speculation but could it be that we’ve been trying to get both of them but Zubimendi has to be paid upfront I don’t know I hope they get the players they want before the season starts which is looking unlikely now
Yes this is an odd situation if it is true what’s been reported by this Mundo Deportivo publication. I suspect a lot of the reporting is just speculation but it does seem as if while other clubs seem to do their transfers without all the drama we have we do seem to be involved in such long winded transfers.
Obviously, Arsenal haven’t signed him but if they haven’t even begun negotiations then they’d better hurry up. The clock is ticking.
Hope we sign Merino soon, we shouldnt dilly dally on this when he is ready to join Arsenal. He is a great player, very technical and also has an eye for goal. He would greatly strengthen our midfield.
All these long drawn-out transfer sagas can’t just be down to Arsenal taking a casual approach to signing players. Arteta must really want a player like this, so it must be a case of business negotiations taking time. Or the selling club delaying things to get more money at the last minute or achieve some other goal that would benefit them in the transfer market.