Arsenal are moving strongly for Kai Havertz in the last few days, and sources like Fabrizio Romano are claiming that the Gunners have already agreed personal terms with the attacker, and are just now getting stuck into negotiations with Chelsea over a price for him.
Nizaar Kinsella’s article from this morning has an interesting angle on why Mikel Arteta’s team have gone so strongly for Havertz now, rather than biding their time and striking later in the window, perhaps when Chelsea are more desperate to raise money.
The reason is that same June 30th accounting deadline which Chelsea must abide by in order to balance the books for this season. Arsenal know that any money they take in before that deadline is worth more to Chelsea than money they take in after it, so they’re hoping to force our hand and convince us to take a lower price accordingly. It’s a clever move, and it just might work.
The problem for them is that if they low ball us too much and that deadline passes without a deal, suddenly the price they’re going to have to pay jumps up significantly. It’s going to be yet another game of cat and mouse in these next two weeks it seems, with a lot of moving parts and tense negotiations right up until the deadline that we have at the end of the month.
It’s not a problem to Arsenal. If the deadline passes and the price goes up they will walk away. Due to Chelsea’s profligacy last January everyone knows you need to sell heavily this window.