Barcelona rival Arsenal for bargain €50m star who’d be a popular signing with the Barca dressing room

Barcelona are reportedly the latest club to show an interest in the potential transfer of Athletic Bilbao star Nico Williams, who is also on Arsenal’s radar ahead of the summer.

The talented young Spaniard has impressed in La Liga in recent times, with Charles Watts yesterday telling CaughtOffside about the Gunners having him on their list of targets ahead of next season.

Now, however, there’s a fresh update about Barca considering Williams a potential bargain opportunity on the market this summer as he’s available for his release clause fee of just €50million.

See below for the latest details from Spanish journalist Toni Juanmarti on X, formerly Twitter…

????

??El Barça no se olvida de Nico ni tras su renovación.

??Hoy es inviable, haría falta regresar al 1:1 y alguna salida en parcela ofensiva.

??El club cree que calidad-precio (~50M) es opción top.

??Nico tiene gran feeling con varios azulgranas.https://t.co/gXWLfO3Uju

— Toni Juanmartí (@tjuanmarti) March 27, 2024

The post states that Barca players would be keen on the addition of Williams, so it will be interesting to see if the club can push ahead to get this done.

Williams transfer: Will he move to Arsenal or Barcelona?

In many ways, Arsenal might be the more tempting destination for a talent like Williams right now, but Barca are such a big name that it would be hard for anyone to turn them down.

The Catalan giants are currently going through a difficult period and will be changing managers this summer, with the struggling Xavi recently announcing that he would step down from his role at the end of this current campaign.

Arsenal, by contrast, seem to be very clearly on the way up under Mikel Arteta, and Williams would likely enjoy his football at the Emirates Stadium.

With that €50m release clause, any club can attempt to trigger a deal, so it will presumably then come down to the player to make a final decision on where he wants to go, depending on how many teams end up coming in for him.

Arsenal fans will surely hope he chooses them as they could do with more depth behind Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli out wide.