154-career-goal Arsenal transfer target rejects Manchester City approach

Manchester City reportedly seem to have made a late effort to rival Arsenal for the transfer of Julian Alvarez, but he’s turned them down.

The Argentina international’s future still hasn’t been resolved after three days in a row of failing to report for Atletico Madrid training.

Alvarez has been prioritising a move to Barcelona, and it seems he remains adamant that he doesn’t want to return to England, according to Cadena SER.

The report states that Man City tried to offer Alvarez the chance to come back to the Etihad Stadium for a second spell, but he’s rejected their approach due to not wanting to return to the Premier League.

So even if Arsenal’s top target has snubbed one of their rivals, it still doesn’t sound too hopeful for the Gunners either.

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Is Julian Alvarez worth all this fuss?

Alvarez is a top player, as he’s shown time and time again in his spells at City and Atletico, but it’s debatable if he’d actually strengthen the likes of Arsenal or City that much.

Barca’s interest makes sense as they’ve just lost Robert Lewandowski up front and need a big name to come in and lead the line for them this season.

At City, however, we already know that Alvarez struggled to get into the starting XI all that often due to the presence of Erling Haaland, who remains the clear first choice now.

Even at Arsenal, there’s a case for saying that they would probably be alright with Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz as their strikers for this season.

For all the criticism Gyokeres has had, and all the hype Alvarez has had, it was actually the Swedish striker who scored more goals last season.

Gyokeres hit 21 goals in all competitions, compared to 20 for Alvarez, and Havertz has also been in fine form since returning from injury.

Overall, Alvarez has 154 career goals, with 139 in 332 games at club level, and a further 15 in 59 caps for Argentina.

These are good numbers, but arguably not so outstanding that it’s worth Arsenal putting so much into this saga when it seems clear the player doesn’t want to join anyway.