Although Mikel Merino has verbally agreed to move to Arsenal and his club is aware that the midfielder will play in London this season, Real Sociedad is not making it easy for Arsenal to finalise the transfer.
The midfielder has been sidelined at Sociedad, and the team is struggling due to his absence.
Arsenal has reportedly had at least one offer for Merino rejected, signalling that Sociedad is determined to play hardball over his transfer.
While they have come to terms with losing him, they are now focused on securing a substantial fee. Club president Jokin Aperribay has emphasised that they will only sell Merino for the right price.
He said, as quoted by the Daily Mail:
‘Unfortunately, one of the teams we didn’t want to show up showed up.
‘When we consider that the offer is good, we will say yes.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
We are signing Merino against Sociedad’s wishes, so we should not expect them to help us in any way.
The La Liga side is frustrated that they cannot keep him, and they will demand top dollar from us before he leaves.
We need to be prepared for that and ready to pay more money than we anticipated when signing him.
