Fabrizio Romano says Arsenal star flying out today to complete transfer away | OneFootball

The Ukraine international has been on loan at Nottingham Forest this season but has barely featured, and now looks set to seal another move away from the Emirates Stadium.

Despite initially being a key player when he joined Arsenal from Manchester City in the summer of 2022, Zinchenko has fallen far down the pecking order in Mikel Arteta’s side.

See below as Romano has posted on X about Zinchenko nearing a move to Ajax in a permanent deal…

“Oleksandr Zinchenko will fly to Amsterdam on Friday to sign in as new Ajax player. Deal becomes permanent from Arsenal for €1.5m fee plus add-ons linked to UCL,” Romano posted.

Why Oleksandr Zinchenko fell out of favour at Arsenal

Zinchenko initially looked like a fine signing for Arsenal, helping them become serious title contenders against his former club Man City in 2022/23.

Still, for all his qualities on the ball, Zinchenko started to show some weaknesses to the defensive side of his game in his second season.

This led to Arteta favouring more solid defensive players at left-back, with Takehiro Tomiyasu playing ahead of him for a lot of 2023/24, before Riccardo Calafiori was then signed for the 2024/25 season.

Oleksandr Zinchenko warming up for Nottingham Forest (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

The emergence of Myles Lewis-Skelly will also have impacted Zinchenko, with the England youngster rising from the club’s academy and quickly showing himself to be one of the biggest prospects in the country.

Zinchenko has been a little unlucky not to play more often for Forest, but he’ll no doubt hope he can revive his career with Ajax.

What Oleksandr Zinchenko has said about Arsenal struggles

Writing in his autobiography, as quoted by the Athletic, Zinchenko made it clear just how frustrating he found life on the bench for Arsenal.

“I was basically out of the starting XI altogether, bar a few isolated matches,” he said.

“In pure personal terms, it was easily the worst season I ever experienced as a professional.”

He added: “Going from one of the established play­ers of the side to unused sub is much harder to deal with. The sense of rejection you feel if your manager no longer believes in you can take the stuffing out of you, even if you’re the most resilient guy on the planet.

“Sitting on the bench in the Premier League for a very generous wage packet is obviously still a privilege, the kind of problem that billions of people on this planet would swap their much tougher lives for in a heartbeat. Trust me, as a Ukrainian, I’m aware of that. Every single minute.

“But every footballer started playing because they love to play the game. A big part of your life is missing without it.

“Imagine this little boy who’s dedicated his entire existence to becoming good at one particular thing and then finds at 28 that he’s essentially no longer needed, that there are others who can do the job for him. It’s not a nice feeling.”