Arsenal were reported to have considered Sandro Tonali on Deadline Day as they sought short-term midfield cover following confirmation of Mikel Merino\u2019s foot injury. The suggestion that Tonali had been offered to Arsenal was strongly denied by the player\u2019s agent, while the club continued to evaluate options.<\/p>\n
The need for reinforcements followed Arsenal\u2019s announcement about the severity of Merino\u2019s injury, which leaves the squad down a midfielder for the coming months. Mikel Arteta acknowledged the situation ahead of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea and confirmed the club were searching the market.<\/p>\n
Sky Germany reporter Florian Plettenberg claimed Arsenal were \u201cexploring\u201d a deal for Tonali after an initial approach was rejected. That report was contested by The Athletic \u2019s well-connected David Ornstein, who said no discussions between the two clubs had taken place and traced the interest back to Tonali\u2019s agent, Giuseppe Riso.<\/p>\n
Andrea Berta was described as an \u201cadmirer\u201d of Tonali, but the practicalities of completing a transfer so late in the window prevented any move from progressing. In response to The Athletic\u2019s account, Riso told Sky Italia: \u201cNewcastle won\u2019t let Sandro leave in January. We haven\u2019t spoken to Arsenal about this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arteta addressed the club\u2019s response to Merino\u2019s absence directly. \u201cThe news of Mikel was very unexpected, obviously, especially for such a long time,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we are actively looking at options and we will continue to do that. My day will be the same as usual, I will be busier and if we have a final solution, I will try to do it, and if we don\u2019t, we will continue in the manner that we are now.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to look and we need to do everything that we possibly can to see if we have a player that is available. If we don\u2019t, we keep what we have,\u201d he added, later conceding he \u201cisn\u2019t relaxed\u201d about the situation.<\/p>\n
On the injury itself Arteta was cautious: \u201cIt\u2019s a very rare injury, so we have to wait and see once we have the surgery,\u201d the Arsenal boss sighed. \u201cHow it reacts daily, monitor it throughout the week. I know Mikel is going to do absolutely everything that he possibly can to come back as quick as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agent denies Arsenal approach for Sandro Tonali as Arsenal scramble for midfield cover after Merino.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1163],"tags":[983,1342,1066],"class_list":["post-6443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-andrea-berta","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}