Kenan Yildiz’s name keeps surfacing in Arsenal rumours, but are the club seriously interested or just being used to land the player a better deal in Italy?
Arsenal’s recent links to Kenan Yildiz have carried a familiar feel in Italy. Enough substance to sound credible, enough noise to unsettle negotiations, and just enough room for doubt over whether a move is genuinely being pursued or simply being used as leverage in contract talks at Juventus.
The 20-year-old forward has been repeatedly described in the Italian press as a central part of the Juventus rebuild, a player viewed internally as a long term cornerstone rather than a saleable asset. Yet over the past month his name has been increasingly linked to north London, with suggestions that Arsenal’s recruitment team have been tracking his progress closely and sounding out the conditions of for possible deal.
Those reports have coincided with stalled negotiations over a new contract in Turin.
Yildiz is already tied to Juventus until 2029, but discussions over an extension to 2030 and a substantial salary increase have reportedly slowed, creating the space in which Premier League interest has been amplified.
That timing has led to the suspicion that the Arsenal story is being deployed as a negotiating tool rather than a genuine prelude to a move.
That interpretation has been challenged by Italian journalist Gianni Balzarini, who insists contact has taken place.
Quoted by TuttoJuve, he said: “There’s been real contact with Arsenal, that is, Arsenal have asked for information, it’s part of the game, there’s no negotiation, let’s be clear, but they have asked for information about this player who, in my opinion, could also do very well in the Premier League given his physical and technical characteristics, and so it’s clear that after all this atmosphere here, a sort of halo is forming around the boy, the player who, for his part, I also understand, may claim the need to play in a better team.”
Juventus, however, continue to brief that the player is not for sale.
Yildiz is regarded inside the club as the “face of the project”, with an improved contract intended not merely as a reward but as a signal of their intent. His current net salary of around €1.7 million is set to rise sharply, with Italian reports placing the offer in the region of €5-to-€6 million per year.
The reason negotiations have reportedly stalled is the ceiling of that rise rather than any active desire on the player’s part to engineer a move.
From an Arsenal perspective, there doesn’t seem to be much ‘there’ there.
The club are regularly cited among Premier League sides monitoring Yildiz and have been reported to have explored including potential swaps to soften a rumoured €80 million to €100 million valuation. But the same reporting often stresses that his preference remains to stay in Turin, provided Juventus meet his financial requirements.
Some Italian outlets have gone as far as to suggest that scouts from north London have privately accepted that a renewal is now the most likely outcome.
Chelsea are also known to have explored the situation previously and Juventus are aware that the longer talks drift, the greater the risk of external pressure. At the same time, the club’s willingness to turn down offers in the €65 million to €70 million range, as they did with a Chelsea offer, is not the behaviour of a club preparing to cash in.
Taken together, the balance of probabilities still points towards a contract extension in Italy rather than a January or summer move to the Premier League.
For now, Juventus remain confident they can keep him. Arsenal, watching from a distance, are likely to remain there.