Arsenal will only complete a deal for Chelsea striker Tammy Abraham ‘if Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah leave the Emirates Stadium this summer’.
The Gunners are interested in signing 23-year-old England international Abraham, who has fallen dramatically down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge.
Manager Mikel Arteta is an admirer of Abraham and it has been Arsenal’s intention to bolster their strikeforce for several months now.
It has been reported the deal will take the form of an initial loan with a £40million obligation-to-buy clause included.
Arsenal would pay a large chunk – if not all – of Abraham’s £80,000-a-week wages during the loan.
Abraham, who grew up supporting Arsenal and idolising club legend Thierry Henry, is open to a move across to north London having seen game time limited under Thomas Tuchel.
However, as The Athletic report, with Abraham’s eventual price tag and wages pretty substantial, Arsenal will need to offload some players first.
Both Lacazette and Nketiah have one year remaining on their existing contracts and so Arsenal would risk losing them for nothing in the summer of 2022.
Nketiah, 22, who scored six goals in 29 outings for the club last season, has been offered a new contract but wants assurances about his long-term future before signing it.
There is also reportedly a willingness to sell Lacazette, 30, the current No 9, to make way for an incoming striker.
Both Lacazette and Nketiah have one year remaining on their existing contracts and so Arsenal would risk losing them for nothing in the summer of 2022.
Nketiah, 22, who scored six goals in 29 outings for the club last season, has been offered a new contract but wants assurances about his long-term future before signing it.
There is also reportedly a willingness to sell Lacazette, 30, the current No 9, to make way for an incoming striker.
Chelsea academy graduate Abraham enjoyed a breakthrough season under Frank Lampard in 2019-20, scoring 18 goals as he started frequently in the Premier League and Champions League.
However, despite starting the season as Lampard’s No 1, Abraham fell out of favour when Tuchel came in with German forward Timo Werner preferred in attack.
Tottenham and West Ham were also interested in signing the striker, who has six England caps, but Arsenal are likeliest to strike a deal.
Tokyo 2020: Gymnast Uche Eke targets medal at maiden Olympics
Making his debut at the Olympic Games, Uche Eke, the first Nigerian athlete to compete in the gymnastic events of the Games, has set his sights on winning a medal for Nigeria.
After a gold-winning debut at the African Games in Morocco in 2019, the 23-year-old will be going all out to show the world the result of 20 years of training; preparations that started when a then three-year-old Eke began doing backflips in his parents’ sitting room.
“I am not under any pressure, I just want to go out there and do my stuff,” he said. “I want to win a medal for Nigeria, but first I will need to get to the final. That is the first step to winning a medal.
“I will be competing in six events and if I make the finals, anything can happen. I want to go out there and put all the hard work of 20 years, when I first started gymnastics, to the test.
“I am not going to be concentrating on any other person; I will focus on myself and do what I have to do out there.”
On his feelings after qualifying for the Olympics, the gymnast, who hails from Anambra State, said it was a dream come true.
“I pinched myself and had to ask myself if I was dreaming, for I really did it,” he recalled with excitement. “Then I quickly re-watched the video that I made while in the bathroom, saying this is the day to see if I’m an Olympian or not.
“I always do these quick video snippets of me facing the mirror in the bathroom; videos that I would watch at the end of the events to see if I would be happy or sad. But on that day, I was so happy. I was just super excited.”
Eke is scheduled to compete at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre, in Tokyo, the venue of the Olympic Games gymnastics events from Saturday, July 24.
