Arsene Wenger insists Arsenal are still ‘active’ in the transfer market as the club attempts to complete a deal for Monaco midfielder Thomas Lemar.
On Friday, L’Equipe claimed that the Gunners have submitted a third offer worth €50 million (£44.7m) for the France international, but the bid was rejected by Monaco.
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Monaco are adamant that the the 21-year-old will not be sold this summer and Arsenal could turn their attention to signing Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City.
Wenger also remains keen on a deal for Nice’s defensive midfielder Jean-Michael Seri, who has a release clause of €40m (£36m).
‘What’s next is to remain active,’ Wenger told Arsenal Player.
‘Not a lot [has] happened.
‘I believe there are actually two ways to improve the team. First of all to improve the quality of what we do in training to improve the squad and improve the players we have, and secondly to bring more top-level players in.
‘The difficulty is to bring top-level players in because you pay a huge amount of money for very normal players at the moment. As well, all the big clubs are chasing the same players and that provokes huge inflation.
‘Maybe this will be the first time we [football clubs] pay over £200m, maybe over £300m with Neymar and around £200m with Mbappe.
‘So there is a huge inflation. But we are active, we are working hard and I think we have done well with Kolasinac, we have done well with Lacazette and we are continuing to work.
‘There’s the usual acceleration in the final part of August.
‘But I think you have always to be on alert every day, because a good opportunity might turn up.
‘Sometimes people you are after for a long time are not available and suddenly they become available. So you have always to be on alert. That’s what we do.’
Source:-metro