Arsenal have apparently taken ‘significant steps’ in their summer pursuit of Athletico Bilbao star Javi Martinez, according to the Daily Mail.
The 23-year-old midfielder has attracted the likes of Barcelona and Manchester United in recent times after his impressive displays in the Europa League for the La Liga outfit, and it seems Arsene Wenger has taken note of the Spanish international by sending a senior scout to watch Martinez in Bilbao’s 3-1 win over Sporting Lisbon on Thursday night.
Just last year Martinez signed a two-year contract extension to existing deal and is now tied down to the Basque club until 2016. But there is a buy-out clause in his contract which stands at £32.5 million.
Now I have to say this rumour made me laugh out loud because we will no way in a million years splash that amount out cash on any player, let alone Martinez.
Don’t get me wrong, he is an exceptional player and has a very bright future ahead of him, but £32.5 million for a 23-year-old is ludicrous in my book.
It will be interesting to see how this story develops though, especially as we have an abundance of midfielders at our club already and are in hot pursuit of Yann M’Vila. Personally I don’t see us acquiring Martinez, unless we can negotiate a better deal for ourselves, which is highly unlikely considering Barca and United are interested.
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Wenger will offer em 3.2m
haha exactly or maybe find a cheaper alternative in the congo for 3,000 euro and a goat!!
Haha spot on
To be honest the majority of buy out clauses aren’t usually met, m’villa is a good player but has he got the qualities that Martinez has, no. Martinez is not only a ball winner he is a leader a defender, scores goals and sets up goals, his airial ability is exactly what we need. I see no reason why we can’t sign him, I think you so called fans should stop winging about how little we spend. Wenger has always said he will spend the right players, in my opinion hazard and Martinez are the right players but we shall see what happens in the summer.
M’Vila is only a good player and hasn’t got the qualities as Martinez! COUGH COUGH! we put in a bid of 16mil last year only to be rejected on the basis Rennes didn’t find any substitute Martinez has just been given exposure as he plays in he Europa league M vila plays in very much a below average french side not even average and he got a call up to the France Team! not only that he is technically brillant on the ball and one hell of a tackler!
Martinez would be perfect for Arsenal and is a lot better than M’Vila but Wenger is too stubborn to spend even £15 million let alone £30 million
Let 4get beating about the bush, arsene will never sign such a player,he only discover talented player for the other club. Arsene is not serious to be frank !
32.5m for martinez, no thanks. I’m sorry but were are not in the position to spend that amount of money on one player and for those who will only be happy when we spend 20-30m on a player, you need to have a look through recent transfers of players around that price and you will see that it frequently turns out badly and then wenger will get more criticism for spending crazy money on someone when it doesn’t quite work out.
Yes we would all like to spend a lot of money and bring in players but I want players who are quality and want to play for the club not ones that are expensive and flash but don’t care. You must also note there is not always a direct link between thew price of the player and the quality of the player eg carroll
Mvila would do it for me!
We need M’Villa more than Martinez. Why? M’Villa is a pure defensive midfielder that sits just in front of the back four to protect them. We really cannot depend on Song who is too immobile and his positioning is quite poor.
Gunner Fans may claim our defence has improved but statistics do not lie – we have just broken our worse defensive record under Wenger’s tenure – 44 goals conceded and the season has not even ended. Our previous worse record was 43 goals conceded on a few occasions.