Daniele Rugani’s agent, Davide Torchia, says Juventus consider his client unsellable, dashing any lingering Arsenal hopes of signing the defender.

Arsenal are long-term admirers of Rugani, reportedly showing an interest in him this January, according to his agent. They didn’t make an official offer at the time, but some rumours suggested they might this summer.

Unfortunately, Torchia now seems to be ruling out the transfer completely, for now anyway.

“It’s been a very positive season for Daniele,” he said. “He’s played more than 1000 minutes in the league and made 26 appearances, including 25 as a starter. It’s a nice improvement compared to the previous season and there is space to be able to do better next year.

“At Juventus it’s not enough just to be a good defender, you always have to do more. Juventus have always considered him unsellable and have never considered selling him.

“The club are very satisfied, they have great respect for the lad and don’t want to deprive themselves of his football qualities.”

As the agent mentions, Rugani made 26 appearances this season, which is an improvement on the 20 he made in the previous campaign.

It’s slow progress, and he still clearly isn’t a nailed-on starter, but the longer the year went on, the closer he seemed to get to that status. By the end of the league season he’d started seven of the final eight matches.

Giorgio Chiellini, Mehdi Benatia and Andrea Barzagli are all in their thirties now, so it can’t be too long before 23-year-old Rugani starts to take over from them even more regularly. Knowing that, I don’t really see why he’d want to leave the Italian club.

It’s disappointing for the Gunners, because Rugani would fit the mould at the club quite well. His passing is excellent, he’s an intelligent defender and he’d bring some height to the back line. They’ll have to look elsewhere now.