Arsenal Attempt To Lower Price For World Cup Winner

This is the summer of all the change for Arsenal and yet somethings can actually never change as the Premier League club try to haggle down the price of a World Cup winner.

22 years of Arsene Wenger have gone, jokes about finishing fourth are out the window, Wenger Out campaign will have to wait for something else to protest and Piers Morgan is no more...sorry I got ahead of myself with that last one.

After more than two decades of Wenger, and about a decade of the rest of it, Arsenal are starting anew with Unai Emery at the helm and they've been signing players.

Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Sokratis and Stephan Lichtsteiner have all joined, adding the experience, tenacity and quality that has sometimes been missing. Of course there's still been time to add a 19 year old relatively unknown Frenchman in Mattéo Guendouzi, why change the habit of a lifetime.

But as it seems that not everything changes there is also the news that Arsenal want a World Cup winner but aren't willing to pay his relatively reasonable transfer release clause.

According to France Football, Arsenal are hoping to add Steven Nzonzi to their ranks but are negotiating with Sevilla over the €40 million release clause in his contract, hoping to pay less.

Nzonzi was part of France's World Cup winning team. Image: PA Images

Nzonzi played under Emery when the Spaniard was in charge at Sevilla, and was also interested in the player when he was at PSG, and wants to add the man he won the Europa League with to his new team.

The former Stoke City midfielder is a long time target of the Gunners but when asked about a move for him last month Emery said, "I know him but we haven't made a move for him."

That now seems to be old news with the north London club wanting to negotiate down the price for him as they don't want to pay so much for a midfielder getting close to his 30s.

Nzonzi won the Europa League with Emery. Image: PA Images

Nzonzi didn't play too much at the World Cup, only starting one game and making three substitute appearances, but he was extremely important cover for N'Golo Kante and replaced the Chelsea man early in the second half of the final.

Will Arsenal get their man or will Emery start his list of players he nearly signed? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Topics: Football News, Football transfers, Arsenal, Transfer news, Sevilla

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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