Premier League powerhouses Arsenal want a defender, but Mikel Arteta will miss out on Bayer Leverkusen’s Bundesliga ace Jonathan Tah.
Jonathan Tah’s £35 million release clause is due to expire on May 31 and BILD believe that it a summer move to Arsenal is ‘almost impossible’ for the Bayer Leverkusen defender this summer.
With Mikel Arteta keen to add a talented centre-half to his rather vulnerable Gunners backline, it seems that the Gunners are set to go hunting in the Bundesliga over the next few weeks or months.
Arsenal continue to be heavily linked with RB Leipzig’s fearsome Frenchman Dayot Upamecano while Sky Deutschland also mentioned Evan Ndicka of Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayern Munich’s World Cup winner Jerome Boateng as alternative options.
Though if Gunners supporters were hoping to see Germany international Tah posing in red and white sooner rather than later, they look set to be disappointed.
BILD reports that the Leverkusen star will see his £35 million release clause expire next month. After that, the German giants will be free to demand whatever they want for one of Europe’s most promising young centre-halves.
And with the global health crisis grinding the entire footballing world at a standstill, BILD claims that Arsenal are very, very unlikely to trigger that clause before June 1. The report points out that, without the lure or the funds that only Champions League football can provide, Tah could afford to aim a little higher than the North London giants too.
As it stands, fifth-place Leverkusen have a far better chance of securing a place at Europe’s top table than ninth-place Arsenal.
With that in mind, it is difficult to imagine either Upamecano or Boateng swapping Leipzig or Munich for North London either.
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