FBL-CRO-DINAMO-HAJDUK — Dinamo's Portuguese Paulo Ricardo Ribiero De Jesus Machado (R) vies with Hajduk Split's Nikola Vlasic during a football match in Zagreb, on July 12, 2015. A north-south antagonism, a duel between the prosperous capital and a poorer port city: as ever, the Croatian derby between age-old rivals Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split promises high tension on October 2. These giants of Croatian football, who have only once since independence in 1991 let another club win the national championship, are known by local media as the "eternal rivals". / AFP / STRINGER (Photo credit should read STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

Arsenal Gossip

Arsenal scout exciting attacking midfielder – report

Oct 8, 2016

According to a number of media outlets, Arsenal are scouting 19-year-old attacking midfielder, Nikola Vlasic with some claiming his father has said that the player has an offer from an English club.

That’s only somewhat true.

The first report I came across was in the Daily Star who listed ClubCall as their source.

I checked their report but they gave no source of their own. Knowing that ClubCall aren’t a site renowned for breaking news themselves, I then searched through 6,921 publications from around the globe, looking for a mention of Vlasic to Arsenal to see if I could find where ClubCall got their information.

That produced only the Daily Star and ClubCall reports, as well as one on TribalFootball which took the quote from Vlasic’s father, about him having an offer, which was also included in the Daily Star piece, although they got it from Goal, and simply left out the ‘January’ bit to make it seem like this is a recent quote.

It is not.

Still with me?

Eventually I found a piece from 21 September that mention Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea as clubs who are interested in Vlasic. There are pieces from 2015 as well, but I was mainly looking for recent reports of scouting trips.

None of this, of course, means that ClubCall aren’t telling the truth about Arsenal scouting the teenager as he turned out for Hajduk Split against Dinamo Zagreb, but their lack of source makes the information hard to verify.

That hasn’t stopped it spreading unfettered.

CC claim that, in addition to Arsenal, Manchester City, Leicester City, Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Monchengladbach, Ajax, Juventus, Roma, AC Milan, AZ Alkmaar, PSV, Benfica, Sporting Lisbon and Spartak Moscow all had scouts at the Maksimir Stadium on Sunday.

Turning 19 four days ago, Vlasic already has 85 appearances for Hadjuk.

He is under contract until 2018, can play with both feet, has three assists in his eight league appearances this season and can also play on the right wing or as a centre forward.