As silly season bears down upon us, our resident French expert brings you the latest from the French papers.

France Football [hard copy edition] have revealed in Wednesday’s edition that Arsenal have beaten United for the signature of the highly rated French youngster Yassin Fortune who plays for the racing Club de Lens. This story has been reported widely before now but it seems that it could be moving closer to being official.

This is despite Manchester United making a last gap bid worth €2m more than the Gunners’ for the French starlet.

Racing Club de Lens are in dire straits financially as the president Gervais Martel was supposed to receive millions of Euros from Azerbaidjani owner Hafiz Mammadov, but the money never came.

This is due to the current political problems in the land of fire.

Arsenal will help rescue RC Lens by signing the recent u17 Euros winner Jeff Reine-Adelaide alongside Yassine Fortune.

The double deal will bank an estimated €4m for the French side and help them towards fulfilling their initial budget target.

In France the DNCG has the power to send a down a number of divisions if they do not manage to fulfil the pre-agreed budget or if they need to liquidate the team altogether.