Wily Wenger aims to nip ahead of Spurs to land Barkley
ARSENAL will use Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy’s famous desire to drive a hard bargain to secure the signature of Everton midfielder Ross Barkley.
Spurs have a long-standing interest in the England man, but Levy is hoping to cut Everton’s ambitious £50m asking price in half by waiting until the final days of the transfer window.
Tottenham’s record outlay is only £30m and Levy believes they won’t have to break it for a player who has just a year left on his contract.
Levy has a reputation of taking his deals down to the wire and will be banking on Everton blinking first and cutting Barkley’s price to avoid a situation in which he can leave for nothing next summer.
With Barkley’s value falling virtually by the day it would turn into a game of brinksmanship which would inevitably leave Everton as the losers.
But Gunners boss Arsene Wenger (right), who has three of his own stars – Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Alex OxladeChamberlain – in the same situation as Barkley, is considering offering £30m now.
It’s highly unlikely Wenger will be able to hang on to more than one of the trio and, should he lose both Ozil and Oxlade-Chamberlain, he will be light in midfield with injured Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere expected to miss at least the opening three months of the new season.
A transfer to the Emirates would give Barkley a better opportunity to restart his stalled career than a move to Spurs, where he would be in direct competition with Dele Alli for the No.10 role and with Christian Eriksen, Moussa Dembele and Victor Wanyama for the other midfield positions.
Everton boss Ronald Koeman became increasingly impatient with Barkley last season and, in the end, gave him a “signor-we’ll-sellyou” ultimatum. He told the player
that if
he didn’t accept the new contract offered by the final match it would be assumed that he didn’t want to stay.
Barkley didn’t start that game – ironically at the Emirates – and the contract remained unsigned.
Koeman moved quickly in the transfer market and has already replaced him with £23.6m Ajax skipper Davy Klaassen.
With Swansea’s Gylfi Sigurdsson also on Koeman’s wanted list, there is no future for Barkley at the club he’s supported since he was a boy.
If they’d chosen to sell a year ago there would have been a long queue for the 23-year-old and Everton would have easily realised their £50m asking price.
But Barkley’s form has dipped. He did not respond to the high work-rate Koeman demands from his midfielders and teenager Tom Davies has overtaken him in the Everton pecking order.
A move to Arsenal would also have a positive knock-on effect for Barkley’s international prospects.
It’s more than a year since he last played for England, though manager Gareth Southgate rates him highly and has twice included him in his squads.
Despite his ever-more sporadic club appearances, Southgate confirmed he would have named Barkley again for the recent World Cup qualifier against Scotland if not for a minor injury.
However, Southgate won’t be able to consider him for the final qualifiers in September and October unless he becomes a more regular Premier League starter.