By ’Tayo Amosu
August 18,2014
According to RMC, Arsenal’s £5.5m bid for Adrien Rabiot has been accepted by his employers atParis Saint Germain (PSG).
Arsene Wenger has reportedly been chasing the youngster all summer long and news of his interest in the 19-year-old broke barely a week ago, from Le 10 in France.
The media outfit claims that the English FA Cup champions have held talks with the player and his representatives recently.
The 19-year-old French player is said to have just a year left on his existing contract with the Paris based club and the French Ligue 1 Champions said to be willing to cash-in on some of the players within the ranks in the squad, so as to free up some funds for the capture of Angel Di Maria, who has been seriously linked to the French club, from Real Madrid.
Rabiot, who spent last season on loan at Toulouse, is a highly rated teenager with 3 France U-21 caps but has struggled since 2012 for game time in the star-studded Paris Saint Germain squad. He is a central midfielder who came through the youth system and is considered an all round midfielder- good at passing the ball and creating chances added to his defensive side of the game in tackling and intercepting the opponent’s attempted passes.
£5.5m is said to be a cut-price for the midfielder as Wenger used the one year left in his existing contract with PSG as a tool for negotiation in trying to bring the player to the Emirates.
The player is thought to also have interests in Italy with both Juventus and Roma competing to have him in their fold, but Arsenal seem to have won the battle by snatching this deal for Rabiot right under the Italians’ noses, with discussions scheduled to begin this week.
Rabiot was said to have been on £5,000 a week and Arsenal, with their new found financial status has more than enough to offer the youngster a weekly wage way beyond his current one.
The Arsenal manager revealed recently that he may add one, at most two players to the squad this, but after Arsenal’s win over 2-1 opening day victory against Crystal Palace, he reiterated that fact and many deduced that the signing of a defender would most likely come first if the manager would do more than one signing, following the departures of Thomas Vermaelen, Johan Djourou and Carl Jenkinson on loan to West Ham United.
The North London club is short in numbers at the back as a result of these departures and the manager is expected to fill up the defence with at least one player, as just 6 senior team players are available to the Wenger-led team.
However, this report would come to many supporters as strange not only because Rabiot is not a defender but because as a midfielder, his chances for play time at Arsenal would be seriously limited.
The fact that he plays in the central midfield, where players like Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Tomas Rosicky, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Abou Diaby and even Oxlade-Chamberlain play, makes the talk of an agreed bid between Arsenal and PSG even more puzzling.
Still in the Arsenal ranks are players like Gedion Zelalem and Kristoffer Olsson, who around the same age with Rabiot play their hearts out with the hope of getting a promotion to the Arsenal main stream of players.
Therefore, Rabiot’s worry may not be alleviated if he finally makes it to Arsenal because the positions he plays are laden with many players; so, plenty of competitions await him there too.
Wenger knows best, indeed and in truth!
