Opportunistic Arsenal take risk over major attacker deal as top insider updates

Julian Alvarez is doing his best to leave Atletico Madrid and Arsenal are positioning themselves as an option.

The Premier League is about to kick off its second weekend of the season, but as always at this weird time of year there’s plenty of transfer action going on too.

The biggest story in European football right now is Julian Alvarez, who is refusing to play for Atletico Madrid as he pushed for a Barcelona move.

But Barcelona aren’t offering what Atletico want, and Arsenal are hovering hoping that Alvarez eventually accepts that a move to the Emirates is better than nothing at all. David Ornstein explained more on TNT this morning.

Arsenal hope to snap up Alvarez after breakdown

“At the time of reporting, it’s a low chance that he will come to Arsenal, because he’s had his heart set on Barcelona,” Ornstein said.

“Atletico have closed the door to Barcelona, that won’t happen. They would do a deal with Arsenal, Arsenal are prepared to reach an agreement club to club. But they would want the player to want to join them and he’s shown no indication of wanting to at this point.

“He’s spoken to Mikel Arteta and said he doesn’t want to come. That could change – could he soften in the days ahead?

“I think that would be the target for Arsenal – Julian Alvarez – and if they don’t get him maybe they go with what they’ve got. But we don’t know until the deadline.”

You can understand Arsenal’s opportunistic position – they’ve got to ask themselves if they’re 100% happy with their team if they don’t sign Alvarez, however.