There’s light at the end of the tunnel as far as the Gonzalo Higuain transfer saga is concerned. Juventus are set to pull out of the race for the Real Madrid striker, after their bid was blown out of the water by Arsenal’s.
The Italian side who at times seemed to have beaten the Gunners to Higuain’s signature are now focusing on Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez.
Bid
Arsenal’s bid is upwards of £20m, far closer to Real’s asking price than Juventus’s £18.7m-in-installments bid, a typical Italian technique that often fails to impress larger continental sides. With Juventus leaving the race, seemingly defeated, Arsenal are free to complete the deal. Then again, this is Arsenal we’re talking about, so he could be having his medical in Turin tomorrow.
Right now, however, Arsene Wenger is set to make Higuain both his and Arsenal’s record signing, and definitely the biggest name to join Arsenal since Sol Campbell. This is a Champions League-class forward at the top of his game (bar a difficult last season), at the prime age to push on and make an impression elsewhere. As long as Arsenal add creativity elsewhere there’s nothing stopping the Argentinean from being a huge success at the Emirates.
Careful
However, don’t expect the deal to be on arsenal.com by next week. Arsenal are hoping to have the deal done before pre-season starts on July 4th, but they’ll have to wait for Carlo Ancelotti to take charge of Real Madrid, which is set to take a while, with PSG kicking up a fuss over his successor. Once that happens, the deal should be OKed, though Ancelotti may still decide to keep Higuain (unlikely, if rumours of Luis Suarez joining are true).
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