‘Will make more of a push’: Arsenal will move for £17m player once Rice deal is out of the way – journalist

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Arsenal will turn their attentions to Ivan Fresneda once the Declan Rice transfer saga has concluded.

That is according to Football.London’s Tom Canton who was speaking on his YouTube channel about Arsenal’s transfer plans.

The Gunners’ top target heading into this summer was always going to be Rice, and the north London club are working towards making that deal happen.

As you can imagine, the Rice pursuit is taking up a lot of resources right now, but according to Canton, once that is all out of the way, Arsenal may make more of a push to sign Fresneda.

Fresneda push after Rice

Canton shared what he knows about the £17m player.

“Arsenal are still keen on Ivan Fresneda is my understanding. Dortmund are said to be leading the race for this. Arsenal’s focus remains on Declan Rice and the midfield areas for now, but as far as I’m aware, Arsenal are still keen on Fresneda,” Canton said.

“Arsenal have a keenness in the player and will make more of a push to sign him if they can after they have looked to complete the Declan Rice deal, let’s see what happens with Fresneda, Dortmund are in the lead for Fresneda, but Arsenal are very well aware and monitoring it.”

Be quick

Arsenal may be prioritising a move for Rice, but they need to be trying to do these two deals in tandem rather then back-to-back.

As Canton says, Dortmund are currently leading this race, and if Arsenal aren’t going to push for Fresneda until the Rice saga is concluded, the German club will only increase their lead ahead of the rest of the chasing pack.

There’s a lot on Edu’s plate at the moment, but he needs to make sure he’s focused on multiple deals at once here.