Arsenal plan £15m transfer bid to club that rejected £25m summer offer | OneFootball

Arsenal are planning to return with a January bid for Aston Villa midfielder Douglas Luiz, but they’ll be offering less than they were in the summer.

Mark Irwin reports for The S*n that Arsenal will return with another bid for Douglas Luiz in the January window, but they won’t be offering as much as they did on deadline day.

Arsenal made three bids for Aston Villa’s Luiz over the summer, all on deadline day, valued at £20m, £23m, and £25m respectively. Villa turned them all down, apparently hoping to receive £40m.

So perhaps we shouldn’t feel too optimistic about this week’s reports that Arsenal are planning to return with an offer of £15m in January.

It’s worth highlighting that the circumstances will be very different in January.

Part of the reason Arsenal were willing to submit three bids in a day for Luiz was the news of multiple injuries to their senior midfielders.

All of those midfielders will hopefully be fit by the winter window, putting the Gunners under less pressure.

Conversely, Villa will be under a lot of pressure to resolve Luiz’s situation, as he’ll have just a few months left on his contract. If they don’t sell, they could lose him for free in 2023.

Maybe Arsenal’s stronger negotiating position will help to push a lower-cost deal through in the January window.

Then again, after the two clubs were so far apart in their valuations of Luiz in the summer, perhaps waiting out his contract is Arsenal’s best bet.