Views. Comment. Opinion. Arsenal have £24million bid for William Carvalho rejected by Sporting Lisbon

William Carvalho is apparently an Arsenal transfer target (Picture: Getty Images)

Reports coming out of Portugal are claiming that Arsenal have had a €30million (£24m) bid for the  defender William Carvalho turned down.
It is believed that his club are holding out for an offer closer to the €45m release clause he has in his current contract.
With Arsenal being Arsenal, an opening bid of €30m probably means that they won’t go as high as €45m, but it is reassuring to see them continue to shop at the top end of the market rather than where we have become used to seeing them – in the £10m or less bin.
Don’t get me wrong, while Arsenal operated under severe financial restrictions after they moved to the Emirates Stadium, that bin has served Arsenal well. Sure, there’ve been a few duds that have fallen out of the bin and had to be shoved back in, but on the whole, Arsenal have shopped well given how much their hands were tied.
With the signing of Mesut Ozil last summer and Alexis Sanchez this, those shackles seem to have been released. The new commercial deals, including those with Emirates and PUMA, mean that Arsenal finally have the cash to step out of the bargain basement and see what is on offer on the upper levels where the fancy people shop.
Carvalho would be a great addition to the Arsenal squad. Not only is he young but he is able to play in central midfield, as a holding midfielder and as a centreback, positions Arsenal could do with strengthening before the window shuts.
He had been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United for the early part of the summer, but after they allegedly sent a delegation to Portugal at the end of June, not much more has been heard of them. Perhaps they stopped off somewhere to enjoy the sunshine for a bit and forgot what they were there for.
Regardless, Arsene’s ability to spot a player plus Arsenal’s ability to actually pay for them now means that by the end of this window Arsenal will likely have the strongest side they’ve had in this post-Highbury era.
None of this means that Wenger has lost his mind and will start paying over the odds for players as if he was Chelsea or City, but it does mean that when we hear news of €30m bids being turned down, we get to believe that they could actually be true rather than laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of the notion that we’d be able to pay that much in the first place.
It all makes a rather nice change.