"Fresh contacts" - Arsenal have directly approached Atletico Madrid over Julian Alvarez | OneFootball

Arsenal have reportedly had fresh contacts over a potential transfer deal for Julian Alvarez, though there remains an issue with Atletico Madrid’s valuation.

The Gunners have been linked several times with the Argentina international, and it seems this story is not going away.

According to Di Marzio journalist Luca Bendoni, Arsenal have had direct contact with Atletico over possibly signing Alvarez, while Barcelona are also still heavily involved in this transfer saga.

See below for details…

“There are direct fresh contacts between the ownership at Arsenal and Atleti regarding a possible transfer. There is still a gap in the valuation of the Argentine,” Bendoni posted on X.

This information was shared with the reliable Hand of Arsenal account, and there’s further information on Alvarez and other Arsenal targets there.

More on Julian Alvarez and other Arsenal transfer targets

According to HoA, AFC manager Mikel Arteta is really keen on Alvarez and views the 26-year-old as a potentially transformative signing for the north London giants.

It seems Atletico are also really not keen to sell Alvarez to rivals Barca, so that could end up benefiting Arsenal, as long as they’re prepared to pay up.

Alvarez scored 20 goals in 49 games in all competitions last season, which was actually less than Viktor Gyokeres scored for Arsenal.

Still, most fans would surely agree that Alvarez’s all-round qualities would likely make him a significant upgrade on Gyokeres and also on the likes of Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus.

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Alvarez is also Premier League-proven from his time at Manchester City, so this wouldn’t be too big a culture shock for him.

Whether or not that makes him worth paying such huge money for remains to be seen, especially when Arsenal also seem to have other big targets.

As HoA notes, the Premier League champions also want Morgan Rogers and Bruno Guimaraes, so unless they make several big sales this is all going to be very tricky to do in line with the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.