{"id":12487,"date":"2013-01-28T21:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T21:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/01\/arsenal-open-formal-talks-to-sign-villa\/"},"modified":"2013-01-28T21:54:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T21:54:00","slug":"arsenal-open-formal-talks-to-sign-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/01\/28\/arsenal-open-formal-talks-to-sign-villa\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Open Formal Talks To Sign Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published on January 28, 2013 by pmnews \u00a0\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 1 Comment<\/span><\/p>\n

Reports from Spain say Arsenal have opened formal talks with Barcelona to sign David Villa before the January transfer window closes on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"Villa:<\/p>\n

Villa: going to Arsenal?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It was gathered that the Gunners\u2019 contract negotiator Dicky Law has been in Spain to negotiate the transfer of the country\u2019s all-time leading goal scorer, and that Arsenal are increasingly hopeful they can push through what would be a sensational deal in the last days of the window.<\/p>\n

The Londoners were knocked back by Barcelona when they made an approach for Villa earlier this month. But Arsene Wenger has refused to accept defeat in his pursuit of the forward, and has been encouraged that the runaway La Liga leaders have softened their stance on selling him in recent days.<\/p>\n

Spanish sources said Villa is \u201cvery keen\u201d to join Arsenal after growing frustrated with his lack of opportunities at the Nou Camp.<\/p>\n

Wenger is a long-time admirer of Villa, who turned 31 last month, and is prepared to pay up to \u00a313.8 million to sign him on a permanent deal, and match his current \u00a3110,000-a-week wages.<\/p>\n

Negotiations, according to goal.com, have centred on the construction of the deal, with Barcelona still owing Arsenal scheduled payments for the transfers that took Cesc Fabregas and Alex Song to Camp Nou in the summers of 2011 and 2012.<\/p>\n

Wenger wants a marquee signing to galvanise both the supporters and the playing squad as the club attempt to secure a top-four league finish, and negotiate a round of 16 Champions League tie against last season\u2019s runners-up Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n

Although, Villa played the whole 90 minutes in Barcelona\u2019s 5-1 win over Osasuna on Sunday, his first full match since November 2011, he has started just 12 of the club\u2019s 35 matches this season, including only seven out of a possible 21 in La Liga.<\/p>\n

Arsenal have made bolstering their strike force a top priority in the window, with Wenger keen on a mobile, orthodox centre-forward, who can play anywhere across his forward line and dovetail with his current first-choice spearheads Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud.<\/p>\n

The Gunners also tabled a bid of around \u00a310m for Atletico Madrid\u2019s Adrian Lopez, but they are now concentrating their efforts on pushing through a deal for Villa.<\/p>\n

Barcelona had been reluctant to offload such a valuable asset ahead of a twin assault on the Champions League and La Liga titles, and the club\u2019s public stance has been that the striker will stay at least until the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid is not going to leave,\u201d coach Tito Vilanova said a fortnight ago. \u201cWe are very happy with him.\u201d
Privately, the Spanish club accept that they might have to grant his wish of a switch this month and cash in on a player who only has 18 months remaining on his contract.<\/p>\n

Villa, who missed much of last season after breaking his leg, is Barca\u2019s second-leading scorer in 2012-13 with 10 goals, behind only Lionel Messi, who has netted an astonishing 44 times.<\/p>\n

\"print\"<\/p>\n

Posted by pmnews 4 hours, 12 minutes ago on January 28, 2013, 10:54 pm. Filed under Football, International, News, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published on January 28, 2013 by pmnews \u00a0\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0 1 Comment Reports from Spain say Arsenal have opened formal talks with Barcelona to sign David Villa before the January transfer window closes on Thursday. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}