Reports emerged this week that Álvaro Negredo has become unsettled at Manchester City and wants a move this summer, despite only joining The Citizens last summer in a deal worth over £16 million.
Although the Premier League champions will likely deny they want to sell the player, it is rumoured that they are willing to let the striker leave for £25 million.
Atletico Madrid are supposedly eyeing up the Spaniard as a possible replacement to Diego Costa, who joined Chelsea earlier this summer for £32 million, and are set to make an official £20 million bid if rumours are to be believed.
Negredo is a player who pleasantly surprised me last season. Although he only scored 9 times in 32 Premier League appearances, his modern style of play and refreshing attributes caught my eye at the start of the season, and I often pondered how the 28-year-old would fare playing for Arsenal.
Álvaro is not your typical centre-forward. He isn’t a prolific goal scorer by any means, and prefers create chances for his team-mates through intricate passing and delicate flicks. At just over 6’1”, the Spaniard is capable of out muscling his opponents and holding the ball up for his side. His style is very similar to Olivier Giroud’s, and you’d imagine the Spaniard would have similar success leading Arsenal’s attack as our beloved Frenchman has over the past two seasons.
So, we’ve established that Negredo is a quality player, but should Arsenal try to sign him? It would certainly be a tough task persuading Manchester City to sell to us, but after allowing so many of our players to join their ranks over the year, you’d expect them to give us at least one player in return. However, £25 million is a ridiculous price for a player that was statistically average last season. Yes, he possesses a neat and tidy skill set, but that isn’t enough to justify paying over £15 million for his services. In my opinion, if the Spaniard is sold this summer, it should be for less than the £16 million City paid for him. He hasn’t improved, and at 28-years-old, his new club wouldn’t be able to sell him on to recoup some of his costs.
Still, it would be foolish to rule out signing the City centre-forward altogether. Even if – or when – Alexis Sanchez joins Arsenal this summer, we could still do with one more experienced striker that can do Giroud’s job when the Frenchmen is tired/injured, and Álvaro Negredo is one of the best options for this role.
Given the fact he is currently situated in England, we could wait until the final days of the transfer window to try to sign the player, as he wouldn’t need to travel a great distance to finalise the move. This puts the Spaniard in a special category. We wouldn’t necessarily need to actively pursue the player this summer – we neither need him nor can afford to spend £25 million on a luxury. However, if Manchester City can’t get rid of him by the start of the coming season, we should perhaps make our interest known. Given City’s nightmare Financial Fair Play results, they might need to sell the striker to cover their costs this summer, and if they panic and slap a £10-£12 million asking price on him, it might be smart for Arsenal to make a bid.
Would you like to see Álvaro Negredo as Arsenal’s backup striker? Let us know in the comments.