Arsenal and Liverpool face fresh competition for star midfielder

Tom Weber

• Updated: 9 Mar 2024 15:43 GMT
• 4 min read

Juventus have entered the race for Martin Zubimendi, according to Italian media.

The Real Sociedad star is one of Europe's most in-demand midfielders after helping his hometown club reach the Champions League knockout stages. Though they were ultimately knocked out by PSG - well, by Kylian Mbappe, really - Zubimendi's stocks have only continued to rise in recent times.

Heavily linked with Arsenal for over a year now, the Gunners are the side who appeared to be the favourites for his signing for quite some time. However, FootballTransfers exclusively revealed in February that Liverpool have also begun taking a keen interest in the 25-year-old with a view to potentially making a summer move.

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Bayern Munich are also admirers of Zubimendi, but they, like Liverpool, first need to hire a new coach before making any concrete decisions on potential summer arrivals. Now, yet another European giant has entered the race for the Basque midfielder.

Juventus enter the fray

According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Juventus have identified Zubimendi as a summer target. Given Paul Pogba's ban from football, the Bianconeri have been scouring the midfield market for some time and the Real Sociedad star is now being viewed as a viable summer target despite his price.

Zubimendi has a €60 million release clause, which will make his signing quite difficult to pull off for cash-strapped Juve, but what makes him so attractive to the Italian giants is his relatively affordable wage of €3m per year.

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Juventus will reportedly offload some highly-rated prospects in the summer - such as Matias Soule who will be of interest to Premier League sides - in order to raise funds for a new star midfielder. Atalanta man Teun Koopmeiners remains on the Old Lady's list, but he won't come cheap either and is viewed as a different profile of player to Zubimendi, with the latter potentially offering more of a balance to Max Allegri's side.