Emirates Stadium side look to bring in fifth summer signing before season gets underway.
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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is ready to make an offer of £27m for Southampton midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin having opted against pursuing Sporting Lisbon youngster William Carvalho and Real Madrid star Sami Khedira.
The north London club are confident that such an offer would be next to impossible for the St Mary’s side to turn down, even though Ronald Koeman has seen a number of his top talents already leave this summer following his arrival at the club.
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Wenger is desperate to bring in a strong tackling, defensively minded midfielder and has been tracking the 24 year old French international for the best part of a year.
Schneiderlin has more than proven himself of making an impact at the highest level having helped Southampton from League One to the top half of the Premier League, putting in a superb season last term that secured him a spot in Didier Deschamps’ World Cup finals squad and now the former Strasbourg feels the time is right for a move to a side that can offer him Champions League action.
Southampton have seen Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren move to Liverpool, Luke Shaw secure a Man United transfer and Calum Chambers has already joined Arsenal and Wenger will hope that previous dealings with the club aid his latest bid.
Wenger currently employs new club captain Mikel Arteta in a holding role but the Spanish veteran is in the final year of his contract and didn’t have the greatest of campaigns last term and as such the north London side are not only looking to boost their current complement of midfield talents but the French boss also sees Schneiderlin as a long term replacement for the former Everton man.
Tottenham are also said to be looking to bring in Schneiderlin but Southampton could perhaps prefer to sell to Arsenal given that the White Hart Lane side have already nabbed their former boss.
The box to box performer, who has made 231 appearances for Southampton, sat out the club’s pre-season friendly with Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday claiming he wasn’t mentally or physically ready to play and this may well have further convinced Wenger that he could take advantage of the player’s uncertain future.
Wenger is ready to add a sweetener of a potential loan addition as part of his bid for Schneiderlin with the likes of Serge Gnabry, Francis Coquelin or Ryo Miyaichi being potential bargaining chips.
Arsenal have already brought in Alexis Sanchez, Mathieu Debuchy, David Ospina and the aforementioned Chambers and Wenger is said to be ready to consider Galatasaray’s advances for Lukas Podolski and Joel Campbell in order to help balance the books.
Wenger wants the deal to be sewn up by Friday as he looks to have his summer transfer dealings done and dusted before his side takes part in their first Premier League fixture, at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
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