Samir Nasri’s transfer to Manchester United hit a roadbloack when Manchester United’s initial bid of £20 million was rejected by Arsenal. The Gunners have said that they were looking at a minimum price of £25 million to sell their star-striker. It now remains to be seen whether Manchester United will look to consider this condition from Arsenal or if they will let go of the opportunity to buy Nasri.
Earlier, the two clubs in question, Manchester United and Arsenal had decided to keep the bid a secret but after Arsenal rejected the bid, the details were announced out. Now, Manchester United will need to think through how much can they further spend after having let go of more than £50 million on David de Gea, Phil Jones and Ashley Young already.
What it also does is to give the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger a lot of headaches after having already had to resign himself to the fact that Cesc Fabregas will leave the club for Barcelona. The loss of Nasri will mean that Wenger will have quite a task on his hand to enhance the club’s chances of winning some silverware for the first time since 2005.
Nasri, who has been on a break for now, will return to the training today and it has been rumoured that he will want to leave the club. It has also been reported that while Arsenal will not have any problems in increasing the striker’s pay, they will never be able to match up to what Manchester United may have to give him.
It is not as Manchester United is Wenger’s only headache. There is also a matter of other clubs like Manchester City, Internazionale and Chelsea, who may be looking to grab hold of Nasri with counter-offers. There were earlier reports that Manchester City had had talks with Nasri but the club have themselves rejected any such report. However, after they failed to get Alexis Sánchez into their side, they may begin looking elsewhere.
Nasri had made his debut for Arsenal in 2008-09 after having been transferred over from Marseille. The exact transfer fee wasn’t revealed at that point but it has been said to be £12 million. The player had been signed on a four-year old contract which will get over at the end of the 2011 season. This is one of the reasons why Arsenal will be looking to sign up Nasri for a contract extension if he remains untransferred this season.