Unai Emery has ‘demanded’ that Arsenal sign Steven N’Zonzi from Sevilla according to a report in Spain that also claims the player has said ‘yes’ to a move.
Fichajes report that Emery wants to bring the former Stoke man to Arsenal and that Sevilla see no reason to hold onto the 29-year-old for one more season.
Arsenal, for their part, do seem to be trying to sign an actual defensive midfielder and it’s no surprise to see N’Zonzi’s name linked with the club.
In fact, when Emery was announced as Arsenal manager, we joked in the Daily Cannon Slack group about how long it would take us to be linked with the French midfielder.
A couple of days, it turns out, as this is not the first report claiming Arsenal are interested.
To be fair, Arsenal were linked with a move for N’Zonzi before Emery arrived at the club, but with Arsenal attempting to hijack Liverpool’s deal for Fabinho and Arsene Wenger no longer at the helm, we can be confident that the club are actually trying to sign a dedicated player for this position.
Arsenal were heavily linked with a move for the player in the January window when he was left out of the Sevilla squad. The 29-year-old fell out with the club’s management after Sevilla’s game against Liverpool. Eduardo Berizzo didn’t even name the midfielder on the bench for the next game, and allowed him to travel to London to visit family.
Speaking back in January, Sevilla, boss, Vincenzo Montella, who replaced Berizzo in December, said he didn’t know whether N’Zonzi would stay with the club or not. “He is an important player and he has been training very well and he has a great attitude. But I can’t get into his head though, so I don’t know whether he will continue with us or not,” said Montella.
N’Zonzi, meanwhile, admitted his future lies somewhere other than Seville, but that was before the new manager arrived.
N’Zonzi is out of contract in 2020.