With a touted summer transfer budget of just £45m, Arsenal are reportedly being forced to be creative in their bid to sign Wilfried Zaha this summer.
The Gunners missed out on Champions League qualification again last season, having failed to break back into the top four in the Premier League while losing to Chelsea in the Europa League final.
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That has undoubtedly complicated their attempts to try and strengthen Unai Emery’s squad this summer, as naturally without the revenues from Europe’s premier competition, it is going to have an adverse affect on finances.
According to The Mirror, in a bid to get round those issues and their restrictive £45m transfer budget this summer, Arsenal are willing to include one of Carl Jenkinson, Calum Chambers or Mohamed Elneny in their offer to persuade Crystal Palace to let Zaha leave.
It’s not made clear how much cash would be involved in the deal, but it is noted that a £40m bid has already been rejected by the Eagles, and so perhaps that gives us an indication as to how much Arsenal are willing to put on the table.
Time will tell if it’s enough to convince their Premier League rivals to green light a transfer, but the Mirror make a great point about Jenkinson in that he could fill the void left behind by Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and so perhaps that could be of interest to Roy Hodgson ahead of next season.
Nevertheless, losing both Wan-Bissaka and Zaha in the same transfer window is certainly not going to go down well with the Palace faithful, and the pressure will be huge on the club’s hierarchy to spend that money wisely to bring in replacements capable of ensuring that they don’t fall into relegation trouble.
That is the bigger context of this potential deal, and so it’s easy to understand why Arsenal are finding it so difficult to prise Zaha away to bolster their own attacking options this summer.
