Arsenal have been heavily linked with Manchester City’s Joao Cancelo in recent weeks.
90Min recently claimed that the Gunners are amongst the clubs interested in the full-back this summer.
Meanwhile, FootballTransfers reported that Man City may even be contemplating a swap deal with Arsenal.
This would involve Cancelo coming to the Emirates Stadium and Kieran Tierney going to the other way.
Cancelo seems to be out of favour at the Etihad Stadium, having spent the last few months on loan at Bayern Munich.
With that in mind, there’s a good chance the Citizens will look to cash in on the ‘unique‘ £60million defender.
‘Conundrum’
Dean Jones has given his verdict on the possibility of Arsenal swooping for Cancelo this summer.
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The transfer insider told GiveMeSport that City may think twice about bolstering a title rival.
Last season, they sold Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus to Arsenal, and it nearly backfired on them.
However, Jones also noted how City may struggle to get what they want for Cancelo outside of the Premier League.
“At some point,” he began. “We get to the stage of asking, are Man City going to keep providing talent for Arsenal to put title challenges together?
“The message out of City is always that they don’t show fear when it comes to selling players, and that they don’t stand in the way of players that want to leave.
“But given the helping hand that they’ve given Arsenal to be their main title competitors, by selling Zinchenko and Jesus, there’s got to be a point at which you consider, do you really want to do that again?
“The problem they’ve got is, there aren’t that many clubs that would pay what they’re going to want for Cancelo and you’re only really going to get that within the Premier League.
“There aren’t many teams that actually need that type of player, so you’d probably rather he goes abroad. There’s a bit of a conundrum there.
“But I think if Arsenal could get Cancelo, he would be starting every single week and I think that again, just raises the levels of that team.”
Our view
Cancelo is an outstanding player who would certainly improve the Gunners squad.
He has been deemed ‘one of the best full-backs in the world’, as per the Bayern Munich website.
However, you definitely have to wonder whether Arsenal can actually pull this move off.
Last summer, City probably weren’t too fussed about selling Zinchenko and Jesus to the Gunners.
Mikel Arteta’s side had finished fifth in the league and hadn’t been in title contention for several years.
However, the sales nearly came back to haunt the incumbent champions.
They were in real danger of losing the title to Arsenal.
Besides, it’s not like the Citizens need the money desperately.
They may well decide to sell Cancelo to an overseas team for a smaller sum than they’d get from Arsenal, but not directly strengthen what is now a title rival.