Newcastle United are delaying a bid for Joe Willock, despite growing increasingly confident about a potential deal with Arsenal.

Chronicle Live report that their sources believe Arsenal are willing to do a deal for Joe Willock this summer. Steve Bruce is pushing Newcastle United to go all-in for the midfielder.

Arsenal rate Willock highly, but they’re open to a sale for the right price. That price will be a fairly substantial one, as they want more than £20m to even open negotiations.

But interestingly, no offer or official decision on Willock is expected until later on in the summer.

That raises the possibility Arsenal might give Willock a chance in pre-season first. We’re less than a month away from Mikel Arteta’s first pre-season games now, and Willock hasn’t had any summer football to delay his involvement from the off.

Unless things progress quicker than expected in the next few weeks, it looks like Willock will be an Arsenal player as the club travel to Scotland to face Hibs on July 13th.

That’s probably a good thing, overall. Arsenal will get a chance to ensure they’re not making a mistake by letting Willock go, and they’ll give other clubs the chance to join the race and ramp up the price.

The only downside is that Edu, Richard Garlick, and co. will have less money to invest for the time being. Some of their incomings may have to wait until Newcastle formalise their interest in Willock later in the window.