Arsenal Move for Konsa as Saliba and Timber Injuries Bite
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Arsenal are set to sign Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa for around £51m, taking the club's summer spending past £150m after also bringing in Bruno Guimaraes (£75m) and Christos Tzolis (£34m).
- William Saliba and Jurrien Timber are both ruled out for the opening weeks of the season — Saliba with an 'extended period' back issue and Timber with a groin problem — leaving Ben White as Arsenal's only fit right-back.
- Ezri Konsa posted the best ground duel success rate (73.1%) and best passing accuracy (95%) of any Premier League defender last season, and recorded a 97% pass completion rate across his seven World Cup starts for England.
- Mikel Arteta does not want to field two left-footed centre-backs, which would be required if Ben White got injured and 21-year-old Cristhian Mosquera had to shift to right-back, since Riccardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapie are both left-sided.
- Arsenal played 63 games across all competitions last season and were plagued by injuries, a workload Arteta is looking to mitigate as the club bids to defend the Premier League title and compete in the Champions League.
- Chief executive Richard Garlick told BBC Sport that joining the world's superclubs is 'the goal — that's the ambition,' with Arsenal exploring stadium expansion and still in the market for a forward, holding long-term interest in Julian Alvarez and tracking Juventus' Kenan Yildiz.
- Arsenal considered Bayer Leverkusen's Jarell Quansah, who can play right-back and right-sided centre-back, before moving for Konsa, who at 28 is in the prime of his career and lifted the Europa League with Villa last season.
Why it matters: Arsenal are spending over £150m this summer to defend a title they won for the first time in 22 years, and the Konsa signing is explicitly a depth move — the club played 63 games last season and were hit hard by injuries to Saliba and Timber. With a squad valued at £1.19bn and chief executive Richard Garlick publicly declaring 'superclubs' as the target, Arsenal are paying a premium to avoid the injury crisis that derailed their Champions League run.
Ask SkimNews
