Arsenal are interested in signing Sporting striker Viktor Gyokeres, but a potential deal could be scuppered by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Gunners are expected to target a new goalscorer this summer and the Gyokeres, who has scored 36 goals in 39 games across all competitions for Sporting this season, is said to be on their radar.
According to Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport, both Arsenal and AC Milan are keen on a move for the Swede. The report states that Arsenal are in the ‘front row’ to complete a deal, but Milan have a potential trump card in the form of Ibrahimovic.
Ibrahimovic is Gyokeres’ idol and the 42-year-old became a senior advisor to Milan following his retirement from football last year. As a result, the club are said to be hopeful Ibrahimovic can ‘push him towards Milan’.
Interestingly, Ibrahimovic almost joined Arsenal early on in his career, but the move fell through after he refused to go on trial. “When I was young, I had a lot of interest from a lot of clubs, and one of them was Arsenal,” he told Gunners fan Piers Morgan last year.
“So, I came to the office of Mr Arsene Wenger, and it was a big hype because I saw these players, Bergkamp, Henry, I saw Ljungberg, I saw Vieira, I saw all these players, and I was like ‘F**k, this is big’, because these players I see on TV, even if I already played in high level Sweden.
“But this was big, because this was like, ‘I am here now’. Last week I was playing PlayStation with these guys. And I spoke with Wenger… I came in his office and we spoke and he was like, ‘What do you want?’
“He wanted to get to know me, to feel me. Because I think he is a type of person, he just don’t buy the player, he wants to know what he is buying I think. In the end, he had an Arsenal shirt with Number 9 and, ‘We want you to come and do a trial for two weeks’.
“Everything was good until he said you come and do a trial. I was looking at him. Obviously he is Wenger, I am nobody at that moment. I said, ‘I don’t do trials’, and he was like, ‘What do you mean?’
“‘I don’t do trials, either you want me or you don’t want me, or else why am I here?’ That was me, but it was not to play a game, it was me. ‘No, but you have to come and do a trial’ and then, ‘No, no, you don’t understand, I don’t do trials’. That was it, I never went to Arsenal.”
