Arsenal vs Man City: Arteta and Guardiola preview FA cup clash
Arsenal are reportedly on the verge of paying £40million for Sporting CP teenager Joelson Fernandes. Fernandes only made his debut for the first team at the start of the month but his performances for the youth teams have earmarked him as talent for the future.
The report says Arsenal have shown the most interest in Fernandes and are set to use their relationship with the 17-year-old's agent Kia Joorabchian to seal the deal.
Since the arrival of head of football, Raul Sanllehi, managing director and technical director, Edu, a number players represented by Joorabchian have been linked with Arsenal.
Joorabchian is the agent of David Luiz and Cédric Soares, who have both joined in the past 12 months.
While Philippe Coutinho and Willian, also clients of the super-agent, are reportedly transfer targets for the club.
Mikel Arteta needs money to improve his squad (Image: GETTY)
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Arsenal spent £118.5million last summer and have insisted the upcoming transfer window is unlikely to see big money arrivals, which makes the deal for Fernandes doubtful.
However, head coach Mikel Arteta has stressed the need for investment into his underperforming squad.
He said: "We work so closely with everyone at the club, with the owners to put the plan that we need to take the club forward.
"Everybody has the same ambition, we are in all of this together. But if you ask me if I know right now what do I have and how can I do it, I'm sorry but I don't know because there are a lot of questions that we can not resolve right now with the situation we have.
"One is financially and the other one is because we do not know if we are in Europe, and because we have players that we don't know what's going to happen. That's the reality.
"It's not about sending a message, we all have the same objective which is to try to bring the club back as quickly as possible, fighting with the top teams in the country and in Europe and that's it, and I want to do that as quickly as possible."
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