Arsenal missed their primary winger transfer target as they watched Raphinha make a big-money move to Barcelona. There had been hope that the Catalan side’s financial worries would open the door for the Gunners to steal away the Brazilian, but the Blaugrana look hardly like a team suffering from a lack of funds this summer and got their man.
Since Arsenal have yet to pursue a potential alternative with Lisandro Martinez and now Oleksandr Zinchenko taking the priority focus for technical director Edu. The Ukrainian is now closing on a move to north London to reunite with his former City coach Mikel Arteta.
However, Fabrizio Romano reported that Arsenal would then turn their attention to a wide player again in the coming days. The identity of the wide player remains somewhat a mystery although according to Bild via The Sun, the Gunners have an interest in Bayern Munich’s Leroy Sane.
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With Serge Gnabry set to sign a new deal and following the signing of Sadio Mane from Liverpool, Sane’s opportunities are set to diminish. Not to mention the presence of Jamal Musiala and Thomas Muller also in contention for attacking roles.
As mentioned, Zinchenko looks likely to link up with Arteta and having already secured Gabriel Jesus, Sane would become the third former City star to make the switch to link up with the Spaniard. Considering how Arteta was viewed during his time with the club, this shouldn’t be a big surprise.
Sane told The Independent in July 2020 how much of an influence that Arteta had on him. Even going as far as to praise the then assistant coach for taking his game to the next level.
"I can just say positive things about Mikel Arteta," Sane said. "Since we started working together, he helped me a lot on the pitch. He tried to improve my football; he told me what I did good and what I did wrong, and he tried to work on it. Next to Pep, they both really helped me and improved me, to bring me to the next level.
"Even now, at Arsenal, for me you can see he’s doing a great job. You can see he has a concept, a way that he wants to play, a way that he wants his team to play, and obviously it will take some time until everybody really understands it. I think he will do a great job as a [head] coach too."
At Bayern, Sane has continued the form he showed at a young age in the Premier League. He returned from a serious cruciate ligament injury in his last year with Man City and has bounded back better than most.
Now 26, a fresh move elsewhere could be of interest to him, and Arsenal could offer plenty to the German international. The possibility of seeing a front three of Sane, Jesus and Bukayo Saka would be quite the sight.
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