Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas has admitted they’ll let Nabil Fekir leave this summer, after almost selling him to Liverpool last year.

After a fantastic 2017/18 campaign with Lyon, in which Fekir scored 23 goals and assisted eight, his club agreed his £53m transfer to Liverpool. Unfortunately for Fekir, the deal then fell through, reportedly over an issue in his medical.

Lyon decided they weren’t going to be messed about, and promptly took Fekir off the market for the remainder of the summer. However, Aulas admits the French midfielder is up for sale again now.

“We will not go beyond two sales, plus that of Nabil Fekir, who already had a good exit organised last season (before it fell through),” Aulas told L’Equipe. “We will work on recruitments. We will fight to try to lose as few players as possible.”

Fekir hasn’t quite hit the heights of 2017/18 this campaign, scoring 12 goals and assisting nine in 39 appearances. Nonetheless, Arsenal could do with that kind of return from a midfielder given the departure of Aaron Ramsey.

The Gunners have been linked with Fekir plenty of times in the past. Last March, reports suggested Arsenal wanted to rival Liverpool to sign the player in the summer. It seems they were priced out of a move in the end, with a budget of only around £70m in total that year.

This time around, Arsenal’s need to bring in a midfielder is more urgent, even if the price-tag on Fekir is likely to cause problems again. The 25-year-old is clearly on the market if the club are willing to pay up though.