Arsenal are being linked with a move for Nikola Milenković with Fiorentina wanting to drive up his price as much as possible but Milenković is the ninth player from the same agency to be linked with Arsenal and none of them have signed.

With just one year left on Fiorentina’s current deal with Nikola Milenković, the Serie A side are apparently resigned to selling the 23-year-old centreback.

According to a report in Gazzetta dello Sport, they want to start a bidding war between clubs who are interested, the starting price being €25m (£21.5m).

Are Arsenal, Manchester United, and Tottenham all really interested in him, as the report claims, or are one or more of those clubs simply being used to drive up the price for Juventus and Inter Milan who are also supposed to be interested?

It is impossible to say for sure, but this is the first time Arsenal have really been linked with the Serbian, who happens to share the same agent as Leroy Sane (linked with Arsenal), Kalidou Koulibaly (regularly linked with Arsenal), Jerome Boateng (linked with Arsenal on a free), Samir Handanovic (linked with Arsenal in 2016), Miralem Pjanić (turned down Arsenal), Ante Rebic (linked with Arsenal in 2018), Denis Zakaria (linked with Arsenal in 2019) and Federico Chiesa (linked with Arsenal but on loan with Juventus until the end of next season).

Milenković signed for Fiorentina in 2017 on a five-year-deal and, in return for performances in which “He gave everything for this shirt even in this suffered season, with 34 appearances, 3 goals and an assist,” he will be allowed to leave to move to a bigger club.

Quite what Tottenham’s name are doing in the mix, in that case, is anyone’s guess.

It’s also worth noting that few of LIAN Sports Group’s players are in the Premier League at present. Marcos Alonso and Brighton youngster, Romaric Yapi, are the only two from a client roster of 74 players.