Arsenal have put in an official bid for Stevan Jovetic, according to Italian press. The Montenegrin forward has been chased for over a year, but Arsenal have finally materialised their interest into something concrete.
Fiorentina currently have a bid on the table from Arsenal worth €30m, the release clause. This equates to around £24.5m, which would exceed Arsenal’s transfer record by nearly £10m.
Agent
Jovetic is fully willing to leave Fiorentina, whether that be for Arsenal or Juventus, who still retain an interest. However, his agent Fali Ramadani today flew to London to negotiate an offer from Arsenal. Arsenal are believed to be willing to offer Jovetic £100k per week on a four or five-year-deal.
However, La Viola are waiting to hear if Juventus can come back with an even better offer, though they are inclined to accept less from Arsenal to avoid selling him to a rival.
Better still, Juventus are more interested in signing Gonzalo Higuain or Carlos Tevez, to play alongside their other new signing Fernando Llorente in a 2-man strike force next season. Jovetic was an option, but not THE option.
Worth it?
Since this news broke there has been a lot of debate as to whether Arsenal should be paying £25m for a player who’s yet to score 30+ goals in a season, despite playing much of this season as a centre-forward. Many have called for either a different player (such as Gonzalo Higuain) to be signed, or for another ‘out and out’ striker to be signed as well.
From many reports, Stevan Jovetic is worth every penny Arsenal pay for him. He will become a Robin Van Persie-esque complete forward given time and the right governance, and Arsene Wenger can offer both.
He provides so much to Fiorentina in terms of creativity and fluidity of play, that Arsenal will be a far better team even without him scoring. But his goalscoring will improve very soon, as it has over the past few years.
Arsenal can’t compete to sign the likes of Edinson Cavani or Robert Lewandowski like Manchester City, Chelsea and Bayern Munich can, so they have to make a player like that themselves.
But in this case, Arsenal are starting with nearly ready-made ingredients.
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