Arsenal have told Thomas Partey and his camp that they’ll pay his release clause to Atletico Madrid soon, according to a report.

TheAFCBell report that Arsenal have told Thomas Partey they’ll pay the value of his release clause soon. They claim the player will complete a move by the end of August or early September at the latest. The club reportedly have complete agreement over a four-year contract.

Those claims run in contrast to the stories we covered earlier this week that Atletico believe Partey will stay and Arsenal won’t activate the clause. Obviously, if the Gunners do pay up, there’s nothing the La Liga club can do about it.

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Normally, I don’t like to give attention to the ‘ITK’ accounts on social media. But whilst I wouldn’t entirely trust TheAFCBell yet, they’ve built up some credibility with their reporting on Thomas Partey so far.

Pretty much everything they’ve said has ended up reported by a more reliable outlet not long afterwards. For example, they were the first to report on Atletico rejecting a Partey-Guendouzi swap, days before Fabrizio Romano and others confirmed it.

Then again, this is their boldest claim yet. It’s hard to extrapolate from information on lesser developments. Ultimately we’ll only know how reliable they are when the deal goes through or the window ends.