With about a week to go for the summer transfer window to slam shut, it wouldn’t be premature to deem Arsenal as the winners of the window so far. Orchestrated by Technical director Edu Gaspar, the Gunners have made a string of smart signings that are already proving their worth.
Formerly of Manchester City, the duo of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko have had excellent starts to their Arsenal careers, while talented midfielder Fabio Vieira awaits his chance to make an impression.
The London outfit have spent slightly north of £100m so far, and as per the words of gaffer Mikel Arteta himself, the Gunners aren’t done recruiting yet.
Speaking in the pre-match press conference before the upcoming game against Fulham, the Spaniard stated that there are indeed plans to fill the vacancy left by Nicolas Pepe, who has departed the club on loan.
While the 40-year-old remained tight-lipped on the specifics, the rumour mill has suggested Arsenal have set their sights on Wolves winger Pedro Neto.
Neto, who signed for the Wanderers back in 2019 has enjoyed an impressive spell in the Prem so far.
The Portugal international, who mainly plays as a left winger, carries plenty of attacking threat and incisiveness.
Known for having tricky feet, the 22-year-old scores high on the progressive dribbles metric, a highly sought-after quality in a wide forward.
In fact, his profile shares a lot of similarities with Arsenal’s very own Bukayo Saka.
Both are effective wide players capable of beating their opposite marker, and they can also provide assists when required. The duo are almost equal in age as well, meaning that comparisons between the two have frequently popped up.
And as it turns out, Neto himself has taken note.
After the Arsenal links emerged, fans took a stroll through Neto’s Twitter account and discovered that the Wolves player enjoys his fair share of Bukayo Saka slander.
His liked tweets include a reply to Saka stating that Neto is the superior player and another which claims that the English international probably has pictures of Neto on his walls.
A third like went to an image of himself and Saka in action, with the caption reading, ‘A picture of Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka alongside the most talented youngster in the Premier League.’
Fair to say, the man’s a fan of himself.
If a move to Arsenal does indeed come to fruition, Neto and Saka will likely be competing for similar positions, and it’ll interesting to see how the pair get on in the dressing room.
The two will certainly demand plenty of game time, creating a minor headache for Mikel Arteta, albeit a rather luxurious one.
