Aubameyang a Gunner, Mahrez in City’s sights
• Big moves on transfer deadline
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang joined Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund for a club record fee of £56m on Wednesday, in the biggest deal so far on transfer deadline day.
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger — who last August kept the football world on tenterhooks as he held out selling Alexis Sanchez to Manchester City because he failed to secure Thomas Lemar from Monaco — did not wait until the last minute to land the Gabon striker.
Wenger persuaded his club to pay more for the 28-year-old than the £46.5m it shelled out for Frenchman Alexandre Lacazette last August.
Dortmund has eyed a sixmonth loan move for Belgian international Michy Batshuayi from champion club Chelsea, who has stipulated there will be no option to buy.
“Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has joined us from Borussia Dortmund on a long-term contract for a club-record fee,” Arsenal said, describing him as “one of the world’s most highlyrated strikers”.
“He scored 98 goals in 144 Bundesliga games for Dortmund and had a hand in 172 goals in 213 matches in all competitions for his former club,” it said.
Aubameyang’s arrival should see French veteran Olivier Giroud completing the musical chairs by signing for Chelsea even though Wenger was loathe to let him move to a rival as Sanchez joined Manchester United earlier in January.
However, the French striker is keen to stay in London as he seeks regular first-team action to secure his place in France’s World Cup squad.
Aubameyang will alleviate the pressure on Lacazette although he would be ineligible for the Europa League having already played in the Champions League this campaign.
Elsewhere, runaway leaders Manchester City has lodged a surprise £60m bid for 2016 champions Leicester City’s Algerian star Riyad Mahrez, who ignored manager Claude Puel’s pleas for him to stay by putting in a transfer request.
However, Leicester is unlikely to let the 26-year-old — who was a key player in their stunning title success in 2016 and who has returned to form this term after a dip last season — leave for less than £90m.
City has lost influential Germany winger Leroy Sane for up to seven weeks with an ankle injury and with the club competing on four fronts manager Pep Guardiola suggested he could require a replacement.
“Right now, it’s not the place to talk about it. It’s so difficult,” Guardiola said on Tuesday when asked about Mahrez.
“If things are not possible, then nothing is going to happen. We don’t have too much and we play every three days. We have to find solutions.”
It is not just the top clubs involved in the frenetic last few hours of a January, which apart from Sanchez becoming the highest-paid player in the league — now on a reported pretax £500,000 a week — has seen Manchester City pay a record fee of £57m for young French centre-back Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao.
Tottenham too is getting close to signing Brazilian Lucas Moura, who has fallen out of favour at French giants Paris Saint Germain with the arrivals of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe. The 25-year-old has according to reports passed his medical and would be the fifth-most expensive signing in the club’s history — PSG would like the majority of the £26.5m fee paid up front.
Those fighting to remain in the cash-rich upper echelon will also get in on the act with Swansea — whose win over Liverpool saw them move out of the bottom three — seeking to bring Ghanaian striker Andre Ayew back to Wales.
Swansea is hoping to sign the 28-year-old for £18m, according to the London Evening Standard, having sold him to West Ham United for £20.5m in 2016 — but the London side, which has only Javier Hernandez as its one fit striker, will want to bring in a replacement. Watford’s long-time servant Troy Deeney could fill the void and is valued at £16m to leave the club he has been with since 2010.
● Jose Mourinho has revealed Juan Mata’s contract has been extended for another year.
Spain midfielder Mata was in the last six months of the deal he signed when he joined Manchester United from Chelsea in 2014, but United had the option of keeping him for an extra season and has triggered that clause. The 29-year-old is now committed to United until 2019.
Asked if the contract had been extended, United manager Mourinho said: “Yes it was. Last week or something like that.”
There was speculation about Mata’s future when Mourinho took charge at United in 2016. Mourinho was manager at Chelsea when Mata was allowed to leave Stamford Bridge four years ago.
Speculation returned last week when United completed the signing of Sanchez from Arsenal, with questions arising over where Mata would now fit into the team.
But Mourinho said: “Mata is very important. He is another one, big story when I arrived one and a half years ago — ‘Mata in trouble, in trouble, in trouble’.
“Now he’s getting an extension of one more year. He is an important player for me, an important player for the club, an important player for the other players.”/