Sandro Tonali was reportedly offered to Arsenal ahead of Monday’s transfer deadline, but the player’s agent is denying the claims.
In a transfer saga that seemed to end as quickly as it began, Sandro Tonali was briefly linked with Arsenal on Monday morning, only for Newcastle United sources to come out and claim it was all nonsense and they’d had no communication from the Gunners.
So what happened? According to David Ornstein of The Athletic, the truth is that Tonali was offered to Arsenal by his agent.
Ornstein reports that Arsenal have admired Tonali for a long time, so Andrea Berta explored the situation. But the Gunners ultimately determined that Newcastle were unwilling to do business and the asking price would be beyond their means, so that was where things ended.
This explains why Newcastle were unaware of Arsenal’s supposed pursuit, given the Gunners never progressed their interest to making contact with the north-east club. Arsenal had moved on before Tonali’s club even knew the possibility of a bid was on the table.
Yet Tonali’s agent has confused things further by claiming he didn’t have any contact with Arsenal either.
“We never had any conversation with Arsenal,” Giuseppe Riso told Sky. “Newcastle were never gonna let Tonali leave in January. There’s absolutely nothing to it. We didn’t even talk about it.”
There are a couple of possible conclusions here. One is that the agent is simply lying, saving face for his client by denying that the player was looking to move on.
Another possibility is that an agent offered Tonali to Arsenal, but that it wasn’t Tonali’s agent specifically. There are regularly middle-men involved in football deals, and one of them may have felt they were in a position to facilitate a transfer if Arsenal were interested.
Given Ornstein’s fantastic track record as a journalist, the most likely explanation is probably the former. Agents are notorious for saying whatever they need to if it makes themselves and their clients look good, and in this case that’s just to deny everything.