Arsenal Ramp Up Their Pursuit of William Saliba Amid Interest From Wolves and Roma

​Arsenal have been in for AS Saint-Étienne defender William Saliba from the start of the summer transfer window and are stepping up their efforts to sign him after interest emerged from other clubs.


With Arsenal missing out on Champions League football, they are planning to rebuild their squad and fix their leaky defence, which was the third-worst in the top half of the Premier League - a staggering stat for a side that only missed the top four by a single point.

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However with Saliba being one of the hottest defensive prospects Europe, clubs such as ​Wolves and Roma have joined the race for the 18-year-old's signature.

According to ​Yahoo Sport France, via the ​Express​Arsenal have seen the interest and bid €30m for Saliba after having had a bid of €25m earlier in the window rejected by Saint-Étienne.


Despite Arsenal boss Unai Emery keen to work with new centre-backs, if Arsenal were to secure the French defender, he would have to be loaned back to the Ligue 1 outfit for the upcoming campaign - a demand made by both the club and Saliba himself. 


It is also said that Emery would like to offload some current Arsenal defenders with Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi the most likely to leave, as the Spaniard has deemed Rob Holding and Sokratis Papastathopoulos the starting pair.

Laurent Koscielny,Unai Emery

The Gunners' transfer dealings do not stop at Saliba as they are still looking to strengthen their squad for the upcoming season. Having already secured the signing of 18-year-old Brazillian forward Gabriel Martinelli, Arsenal are interested in Celtic's Kieran Tierney and ​Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha.


These arrivals are set to be funded by the rumoured departures of players such as Mesut Özil and Carl Jenkinson alongside the likes of Koscielny and Mustafi.


Source : 90min