Chelsea ‘likely to ask for £20m’ from Arsenal for David Luiz ... or maybe just £8m? — reports

UPDATE:

The Mirror claim that asking price is closer to £8m instead, which sounds way too low. But maybe that are some variables and bonuses involved, which will eventually land us somewhere between the two reported numbers.

PREVIOUSLY:

It wouldn’t be a proper transfer rumor without a price tag attached, and thanks to the Guardian’s Ed Aarons, we now have for David Luiz’s supposed desire to join Arsenal in the dying light of the 2019 summer transfer window.

That number is apparently “around £20m”, which doesn’t actually seem terrible for a 32-year-old with two years left on his contract who’s supposedly forcing his way out of the team — it would in fact make him the most expensive player of that age or older not named Cristiano Ronaldo.

It’s unclear how much of any of this is speculation and how much of it is real, but things are moving at breakneck pace, with all support structures collapsing as if this were a dream level in Inception and the horns are blaring and is that Edith Piaf?

Arsenal are in fact looking for a center back, with Unai Emery confirming as much earlier, so the speculation does have some potentially solid roots. Emery did work briefly with David Luiz at PSG in the summer of 2016, before David Luiz pied him off for Chelsea on deadline day. But in Silly Season, sometimes nothing makes sense — especially when agents like Kia Joorabchian are involved.

“We tried to sign some important and expensive players for our defence, but we cannot do that and other second line players don’t make us really, really convinced to sign them. We have centre-backs [but] if we can in the last day we are going to try to sign another centre-back with the capacity to help us, so we can have a good balance with attacking and defending players.”

-Unai Emery; source: Sky via Metro