Report: Arsenal quoted £12m for 21-year-old Ian Wright has deemed 'unbelievable'

By Giuseppe Labellarte

Arsenal can expect to pay £12million for Djed Spence, according to the Evening Standard.

The Gunners have recently been linked with the 21-year-old right-back, along with Tottenham and Leeds.

Sky Sports reported on Tuesday that Arsenal, Spurs and Marcelo Bielsa were all eyeing the Middlesbrough loanee.

The Gunners currently have the impressive Takehiro Tomiyasu at right-back.

However, Cedric Soares and Calum Chambers could both be set to leave the club, according to Sky Sports.

Meanwhile, Spurs manager Antonio Conte has reportedly identified the right side of defence as a priority area.

Now, the Evening Standard has claimed that Boro are expected to demand £12million for Spence.

However, the defender is currently on loan at Nottingham Forest and has played for both clubs this season.

This means he can’t represent another team in 2021-22, so he’s likely to remain at Forest for the remainder of the campaign.

Spence will have two years left on his deal at the Riverside come the summer.

He has made more than 20 appearances in the second tier this season.

Spence played for Forest in their 1-0 FA Cup third-round victory over Arsenal earlier this month.

“Combative, technical, swashbuckling”

Gunners legend Ian Wright, who was at the game, loved what he saw from the youngster.

Speaking on the Wrighty’s House podcast, he revealed what he said to Spence after the match.

“I saw him after the game and said ‘listen, my friend,” Wright said, as transcribed by the Nottingham Post.

“‘You’re on loan from Middlesbrough and I don’t know what’s happened there, because if you can’t get into the Middlesbrough side, I don’t know what’s wrong, so I need to know the full story’,” he said.

“But let me say, that was one of the best right back performances I have seen for a very long time. A very long time.

“If we are talking about right-backs performing at an unbelievable level, we’re talking Reece James and Trent (Alexander-Arnold).

“But I have not seen a combative, technical, swashbuckling performance like that for a very long time.

“I said to him afterwards, ‘whatever’s happening, whatever you’re doing, the level you’ve just shown us here is the level you have to be consistently hitting, Djed’.

“I said that to him at the end of that game and all his family were there, and they were saying ‘yes! Listen, man! Listen!’

“I said to him, in all seriousness, ‘that level we saw there? You should be in the Premier League’. Simple as that.”