You’ll always hear stories about legendary players and how they almost signed for someone else in the past, but for some reason Arsenal always seem to come up in those conversations.
A report from Portuguese outlet Record has looked at potential Arsenal interest in Sporting CP starlet Tiago Tomas, and it looks like Arsenal don’t want a repeat of a haunting situation.
They point to previous stories that indicated that Arsenal were close to signing Cristiano Ronaldo before he moved to Man United, but they do now expect to beat United and any other club to the signing of Tomas.
It’s claimed that the deal hasn’t quite been finalised yet, but an agreement is very close and he’s expected to move to The Emirates for a fee of around €22m in the summer.
READ MORE: Martin Odegaard was Arsenal’s second choice target in Janaury after this Barcelona starlet
Interestingly it seems that he was brought to Arsenal’s attention when they were scouting Benfica ahead of their Europa League clash, but Tomas stood out in a game against them and they’ve been impressed since that moment.
The 18 year old is listed as a striker but he tends to be played out on the right wing, while he’s managed two goals and two assists in eighteen league games so far this year but most of those minutes have come from the bench.
He’s been a standout for Portugal at youth level and he’s clearly a talented player, but time will tell if he will get anywhere close to Cristiano’s level.