Arsenal Target £100m Bradley Barcola Amid Liverpool Competition
Arsenal have already made one statement this summer. There is a growing feeling inside the club that another is coming.
Fresh from unveiling £75m signing Bruno Guimaraes to a packed Emirates on Sunday, the Premier League champions are being strongly tipped to crash Liverpool’s move for PSG winger Bradley Barcola – with a former Gunners favourite claiming he has inside information that could tilt the race.
Arsenal acting like champions
This is not the Arsenal of three or four years ago, happy to be in the conversation. Mikel Arteta has already banked three signings: Guimaraes from Newcastle, highly rated Greek winger Christos Tzolis, and French goalkeeper Illan Meslier. The squad that finally climbed back to the top of English football is being hardened, not broken up.
The club swung and missed on the summer’s most audacious target, with Vinicius Junior choosing to commit his long-term future to Real Madrid instead of entertaining a move to north London. That near miss has not dulled Arsenal’s ambition. If anything, it has sharpened it.
The hunt for another frontline creator continues. Marcus Rashford’s situation at Manchester United is being watched. Juventus talent Kenan Yildiz is on the radar. But the name now circling loudest around north London is Barcola.
Liverpool’s Salah heir – or Arsenal’s next jewel?
Liverpool have identified the 23-year-old France international as their preferred heir to Mohamed Salah. They are understood to be ready to go to around £100m for the PSG man, with the French champions holding out for closer to £128m.
Barcola, already a two-time Champions League winner with PSG, has stalled on a new contract and is widely expected to move on. On paper, Liverpool are in pole position. They have the gap on the right wing, the money, and a clear succession plan.
Yet the story has taken a twist.
Former Arsenal striker Perry Groves believes the Gunners have a genuine opening – and not just on footballing grounds.
Asked on talkSPORT whether Barcola would be better suited to Arsenal or Liverpool, Groves didn’t hesitate.
“I’ve got no dog in the fight, but I would say the Gooners because Liverpool are a team that are in transition,” he said, pointing to the arrival of Andoni Iraola at Anfield and the inevitable bedding-in period that comes with a new philosophy and a raft of signings.
If you are a winger at the peak of your powers, you look at the landscape. One club has just changed manager and is reshaping. The other is reigning Premier League champion, with a settled squad and a coach whose ideas are now ingrained.
“If you were Barcola and you thought, what out of those two sides have got the most chance of winning the Premier League or Champions League, at the moment you’d say it was Arsenal,” Groves argued.
The message is blunt: Arsenal now sit at the table where players like Barcola belong. The question is no longer whether they can attract that calibre of talent. It is whether they are prepared to pull the trigger.
The London pull
Then came the line that will have pricked up ears in north London’s recruitment offices.
Groves claimed he has been told Barcola’s preference is clear.
“I’ve got a source that says he wants to live in London,” he revealed. “I can’t tell you, I can’t divulge my sources. I’ve got a source. I’ve got a mole. Barcola wants to live in London.”
For Arsenal, that kind of detail matters. They have been stung before, with Vinicius ultimately staying put in Madrid after being heavily courted. Groves hinted that the club cannot afford to be seen as the nearly men in the market.
“So it’s whether Arsenal want to go in,” he said. “If they go in for him, then there would have been advances being made to his people. Because they don’t want to be seen losing out on Vinicius Junior, being played like a little kitten with a ball of wool, but Arsenal have to be in for those sorts of players. That’s the level Arsenal are at now.”
The champions are no longer the plucky disruptors. They are the benchmark. With that status comes an expectation that they compete for the very best – and close.
Frimpong: Guimaraes is not enough
Inside the Arsenal camp of former players, there is a clear consensus: this window cannot stop at Guimaraes.
Emmanuel Frimpong, once a combative presence in the Gunners’ midfield, has called on Arteta and the board to double down after landing the Brazilian.
“Mikel and the boys have finally got it over the line, which I’m very happy about,” he told Ladbrokes. “But they shouldn’t just win it once and be satisfied with that. They have to keep on winning it now and dominate just like how Man United and Man City have in the past.”
Frimpong’s view is unambiguous. The squad is strong, but not complete.
“We’ve got the players, we’ve got a deep squad and hopefully this summer, the board are going to strengthen further, because I still think we need a couple of wingers and a proper number eight,” he said.
He also touched on an issue that has quietly simmered beneath Arsenal’s success: Declan Rice’s role.
“I feel like Declan Rice is playing in a position which isn’t natural to him, so we need a proper number eight alongside him.”
Guimaraes ticks that box. But for Frimpong, a defining window would pair the Brazilian with a marquee wide signing.
“For me, when it comes to realistic signings this summer, with those positions in mind, I feel like Bruno Guimaraes is someone I’d love to see at Arsenal. And also Bradley Barcola… I think he would be very good for Arsenal. Barcola and Bruno Guimaraes would be a very good transfer window for Arsenal.”
One has arrived. The other is there to be fought for.
A test of Arsenal’s new reality
Liverpool will not walk away quietly. They need a Salah successor and Barcola fits the profile: elite experience at a young age, proven at Champions League level, and available if the money is right.
Arsenal, though, now operate in that same financial and sporting space. They have a title to defend, a squad to refresh, and a manager who has shown he can integrate big personalities into a collective machine.
A winger who wants London. A champion club that needs one more cutting edge in the final third. A rival trying to rebuild its attack.
This is not just another transfer link. It is a test of how ruthlessly Arsenal intend to live as champions.
