According to various reports, Marseille have Eddie Nketiah in the crosshairs and the striker is open to the move.
The 25-year-old is under contract at the Emirates until 2027 but wants to play more regularly having spent most of his time on the bench in the second half of last season.
Nketiah made his debut for the Gunners as a 17-year-old and has since scored 38 goals and made 7 assists in 168 appearances.
It looked like he might leave the club following six months at Leeds United in 2019/20 but was brought back into the fold by Mikel Arteta at a time when the new manager leaned heavily on young players.
🚨🔴⚪️🏴 #PL |
✅️ Séduit par le projet sportif, Nketiah veut rejoindre l'OM. Les négociations contractuelles avancent positivement ❗️
💰 Même si le montant et la formule n'ont pas filtré, l'OM a transmis une première offre pour Eddie Nketiah
🗣Discussions en cours… https://t.co/n3vInnPKaJ pic.twitter.com/vLRe3FwVna
— Santi Aouna (@Santi_J_FM) July 20, 2024
Despite being rewarded with a new deal in 2022, Nketiah has never shaken off his status as a back-up striker. He’s variously played second fiddle to Alex Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Gabriel Jesus and most recently Kai Havertz.
Marseille’s interest in Nketiah comes not long after the controversial recruitment of Mason Greenwood from Manchester United and following the exits of Iliman Ndiaye, Vitinha and the aforementioned Aubameyang.
There have been a lot of comings and goings since Roberto De Zerbi took over as head coach but the Italian’s reputation stands him in good stead with Premier League targets. Get France Football News claims Wolves’ Hwang Hee-chan is also of interest.
🚨🔵⚪️ Olympique Marseille have sent initial proposal to Arsenal for Eddie Nketiah.
No agreement close yet but negotiations started between clubs, as @Santi_J_FM reported.
He’s one of the next top targets after Mason Greenwood. pic.twitter.com/j5UKSmvyfw
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 20, 2024
Nketiah has also been linked with West Ham and Crystal Palace, clubs that are also sniffing around Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe respectively. If the Gunners could raise somewhere in the region of £90 million for the trio, you’d assume that cash would be reinvested in a quality attacking addition.
At Academy level, it sounds as though the battle to keep 16-year-old striker Chido Obi Martin is destined to fail. Fabrizio Romano says Arsenal offered the Denmark youth international a big contract but he’s opted to try his luck elsewhere. Manchester United are one of the clubs hoping to snap him up.
Could see him doing very well in France and not a bad place to live while making 7 figures a year playing football. Wouldn’t be much hesitation if I was in his shoes!
I think this could just be the straw that breaks the camels back as regards Eddie bids. I find it hard to believe that Wolves / Palace / West Ham / Brentford / Brighton / Forest….. aren’t going to be interested. He’s homegrown which adds value for a lot of English clubs. He’s also Premier League ready. And he’s scored pretty much wherever and whenever he’s played. He’s just a little two dimensional for what Arteta is looking for. When you think about it, there really aren’t many players like Eddie on the market and I think that competition for… Read more »
I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie’s love for the Arsenal is driving him to another league. Means we will get a lot less for him that we could, but I am sure we will insert a significant sell-on clause to get our share of a potential return. That said, we should still be getting double what Marseille is reported to be paying for that lug nut Spud Hojberg.
Let’s hope it works out for him or his famous celebration will become – E N phone home.
Take this with a pinch o salt, they have already signed ‘Greenwood’ from the mancs, so Eddie is going to be his back up?
And apparently that Sp*rs cunt who is the footballing equivalent of Simply Red.
If you don’t know him by now, you will never ever know him.
Marseille would be a great destination for Eddie. I’ll be sad to see him go, but it feels now is the right time to try pastures new. Let’s hope the fee reflects his quality, as he clearly has talent.
Wish Eddie the very best. He’d smash League Un to pieces. As for the money chasing youth prospect, he can disappear into obscurity.
He’s probably not money chasing at this stage – more likely looking at Unted’s first team and thinking “yeah i could break into that”.
We always think it’s the player driving the boat, but he is 16. Not even an adult. Parents and agents have huge influence on these types of things. Reliable sources close to the club are implicating his agency on influencing this decision and not for the good of the player (Que Bono?). The decision also doesn’t make a lot of sense from a pure football point of view. United are dysfunctional from top to bottom and they just bought two young strikers in back to back seasons. Arteta has apparently spoken to Chido’ camp and laid out a clear plan… Read more »
It’s Chido’s agent chasing the money
I feel like ‘money chasing’ is kind of the name of the game in this world mate. He’s a 16 yr old kid from Denmark, he doesn’t have any loyalties to Arsenal. It’s really not a big deal
Eddie leaving surely opens up an opportunity for Obi Martin but it seems that he, his family and agent see United as the better route, with only Hojlund, Zirkzee, Garnacho, Rashford, Diallo and possibly Sancho in front of him.
Sad that our academy talent is either sold off or forced to leave of their own volition knowing that Arteta will never give them the opportunities they can get elsewhere.
We should have sold him 3 years ago. Wish him all the best. Hopefully this will open the opportunity for a new strike and an upgrade.
Marseilles have been big spenders in recent seasons. They splurged for 120 and 100 million euros worth of arrivals in the last two campaigns and posted net losses both seasons as well. That hasn’t curbed their spending this campaign, but they are already up to 56 million worth on incomings, but that’s wel short of the past two seasons’ outlay for them. They also just lost Ndaiye, Vitinha and Aubameyang, all 3 are CF and Greenwood is a wing player so the need is there for sure. De Zerbi likes playing with a classic CF, usually Welbeck, and Eddie has… Read more »
Yes do it! Was watching the highlights with Leyton and he missed 3 one on ones and at least 2 rebound shots were blocked or went wide