Arsenal in Thomas Lemar transfer boost as Atletico prioritise selling flop and long-term Gunners target to raise funds
ARSENAL could finally have the chance to snap up long-term transfer target Thomas Lemar.
The Atletico Madrid winger has fallen out of favor with the Spanish giants and could now be on his way out, and into the hands of the Gunners.
Arsenal have been after the 24-year-old for a long time and in 2017 things appeared as though they were getting very close when Lemar dropped what seemed to be a hint by liking a social media post.
He was playing for Monaco at the time.
A fan had posted a photo of the Frenchman with the caption 'welcome to Arsenal'.
An account user with the name 'thom_lemar27 liked it and it gained a lot of fan attention.
Back then, he was rumored to be worth £86million and was wanted by a host of Premier League clubs such as Chelsea and Liverpool.
However his value has since plummeted.
These days, he rarely makes it into the starting lineup for Diego Simione's Atletico and is not proving worth the £63.2million they paid for him from Monaco in 2018 - a club he had joined in 2015 from Caen.
claim the La Liga giants are hoping to offload Lemar so they can finance another deal.
The report goes on to claim that Diego Simone is looking to sign Juventus star Federico Barnardeschi as a replacement.
Lemar has scored just three goals in 67 games since his move.
And he has also started in only nine games in La Liga this campaign - something he has been unhappy about.
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Manchester United are also interested in him, but his release clause currently stands at £168million.
Simione would have to drastically lower that price for any sort of deal to be made.
Despite all football being on hold due to the coronavirus outbreak, summer transfer talks are still being held behind the scenes.