As another summer of significant spending at the Emirates Stadium draws to a close, Mikel Arteta and Arsenal are dipping back into the transfer market ahead of Thursday night's deadline.
The Arsenal hierarchy have backed Arteta handsomely again during the off-season, with the Spaniard spending in excess of £100million on deals for Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Fabio Vieira.
While it is believed that Arteta also had designs on signing a new wide-man before the deadline, Arsenal currently have a dearth of midfield options available to them in the wake of injuries to Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny. That development has forced Arsenal to shift their attention to striking a deal for a midfielder, with Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz emerging as a target.
The Brazilian - who netted against Arsenal just 24 hours ago during Wednesday night's 2-1 win over Villa - is inside the final 12 months of his current deal at Villa Park and it's understood would be open to moving on.
Aston Villa have insisted that they have no appetite to cash in on Luiz this month, but a substantial bid could seriously test that stance. The Sun now claims that Arsenal are willing to stump up as much as £25million in order to get a deal done before Thursday night's 11pm deadline, after an opening offer of £20m was made.
Luiz has been linked with Arsenal before and Arteta is aware of the 24-year-old from his stint at Manchester City, where Luiz was briefly before moving to Villa Park.
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If Arsenal do strike a deal with Aston Villa for Luiz in the coming hours, then Pep Guardiola will more than likely be a keen spectator over the coming months - as the Manchester City chief decided against re-purchasing Luiz last summer.
The Premier League champions inserted a two-year buy-back clause into the deal that took Luiz to Villa Park back in August 2019. And while Guardiola hinted that the club were considering taking up that option last year, City eventually decided against re-signing Luiz - even though the Olympic gold medallist had been earmarked as a potential long-term successor to Fernandinho.
Manchester City are well stocked in defensive midfield and Rodri has stepped up since Fernandinho's departure, but Guardiola could still come to rue the decision to pass on Luiz.
Particularly if the midfield enforcer does move to the Emirates and goes on to help Guardiola's protege, Arteta, re-establish Arsenal as genuine title contenders in the future.
