Journalist Graeme Bailey has suggested that Arsenal are continuing to monitor Ferran Torres with Barcelona keen to move the forward on during the summer transfer window.

Bailey was speaking on the Talking Transfers podcast as he also suggested that Unai Emery would like to take the Spaniard to Aston Villa on a permanent drres this summer. The 23-year-old has been an underwhelming signing for the Catalan giants.eal.

Barcelona would reportedly like to sell Ferran To He only scored four goals for Xavi’s side in La Liga last season.

It will surprise some that he has struggled at Camp Nou. He previously looked an exciting talent with Manchester City. And he left having scored 16 goals in 43 games for the Cityzens.

Arsenal may explain why there is plenty of interest in the forward from the Premier League. In fact, Bailey suggestedmonitoring Ferran Torres

That  that Mikel Arteta would be very keen to be reunited with Torres having worked with him at Eastlands.

“Torres is the odd man out. He really isn’t fitting in there. And there is interest in England. Arsenal are keeping a watching brief. They like him a lot. We know Mikel Arteta worked with him at [Manchester] City,” he told Talking Transfers.

“Newcastle like him. But Villa are the interesting ones, they’d take him on a permanent deal if they could. But the major sticking point here, Torres does not want to leave Barcelona. He’s just saying no. He’s simply just not having it.”

Arsenal are surely going to look to strengthen their attacking options further before the window shuts. Obviously, their priorities have been elsewhere in the early stages of the summer.

The Gunners do have Reiss Nelson knocking on the door. The youngster was very bright when he got game-time in the latter stages of last season.

But the demands of the campaign certainly took their toll on Bukayo Saka. The England international started to look jaded towards the business end. And it is surely fair to say that he was not able to have anything like the same impact as he had had in the first-half of the season.

Arsenal are going to be back in the Champions League next year. And expectations are now much higher. So signing someone to rival Saka seems imperative.

Torres is a ‘spectacular‘ talent. So it would be a statement to sign him. But clearly, there is work to be done before anyone convinces the player to leave Barca this summer.

Aston Villa have not given up hope of signing Wilfried Gnonto from Leeds this summer despite Everton being close to an £18m agreement, according to Alessio Lento.

The Toffees are said to be close to a deal for the Italy international worth around £18m, with the young winger expected to return for pre-season training soon.

But while Everton “insist” on a deal with Leeds, Villa and Unai Emery have “no intention of letting go” in their pursuit of Gnonto, with the Calciomercato journalist admitting it is “hot hours” for this transfer.

future in the Premier League for the National of Mancini, Wilfried Gnonto: Everton insists, but AstonVilla and Emery has no intention of letting go,” he wrote on his personal Twitter account (11 July).

“It’s a hot hour

It seems almost inevitable now that Gnonto won’t be playing for Leeds next season, and it’s hard to begrudge him it considering his performances.

He was one of the only bright lights in what turned out to be a total nightmare of a season last year, and considering he was signed for essentially peanuts last summer any sale will be for a huge profit too.

Everton and Aston Villa are two sides at totally different ends of the table right now and he would certainly play more at Goodison Park considering their real lack of firepower and attackers, but Villa woul

d be a bigger step up in competition considering he would have European football too.

But ultimately that isn’t any of our concern and we have to just be hopeful that we can achieve the best deal possible for him, whether that’s to one of these two teams or another club elsewhere.