£100m star agrees five-year deal to join Arsenal

Whether Arsenal sign Julian Alvarez or not, it is set to be the saga of the summer.

Real Madrid have seen a £130m bid rejected for the Argentine’s services and their rivals, Atletico Madrid, are in no mood to sell to another Spanish club.

Alvarez would love to join Barcelona and has made his feelings clear to Atleti, releasing a statement after his nation’s World Cup win over Austria to say he wants a transfer to “fulfill his dream” of playing for the Catalan club.

Yet, Arsenal are still at the table and according to reports, view the former Manchester City striker as their “dream signing”.

£100m star could join Arsenal alongside Alvarez

If a move to Barcelona does not materialise for Alvarez, then it has been reported that he is “very open” to the idea of moving to Arsenal this summer in what would be a shock return to English football.

To Andrea Berta, it would not be any great shock. It would be a relief. He has allegedly been chasing the World Cup winner for a year now and has maintained regular dialogue with the player’s camp.

He already knows them and Alvarez well having been the man to help broker the deal that took him from City to Atleti in the first place.

Yet, a more realistic target, given everything that is going on with the Argentine, is Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers. That said, this won’t be an easy deal to complete either.

Thought to be valued at around £100m, Arsenal are set to enter official club-to-club talks with Villa in the forthcoming weeks in a bid to close a deal.

The Gunners have already done a lot of work on the player side and according to reports coming out of Italy this week, he has agreed personal terms with Mikel Arteta’s side.

Indeed, it is reported that Rogers has already verbally agreed a contract until 2031 to sign, with contract talks already pretty much sewn up. Now, it will be over to Berta to see if he can agree something sensible with Unai Emery’s men.

Why Rogers and Alvarez would be a dream pairing for Arsenal

The arrival of Alvarez this summer, should it go through, would be a landmark addition. Josh Kroenke recently described Declan Rice’s acquisition three years ago as a “big moment” in the project but this would be another. It would potentially be even bigger than that one.

After all, Alvarez has been hailed as a “Ballon d’Or winner of the future” by Joe Cole and has become one of the most prolific strikers in Europe over recent years.

He’s a brilliant goalscorer, hitting the back of the net 29 times during his debut campaign with Atleti. The Argentina star then scored another 20 last season.

But, this player is not just about finding the net. In his final season with City, the 26-year-old registered 13 assists and he picked up another nine during 2025/26 for the Spanish giants.

He’s an exceptional player when it comes to linking play. Capable of playing as the main striker or even behind as something of a second striker, it’s no surprise to see he ranks highly for expected threat in the build-up phases of play.

For that metric, he ranks in the top 9% of positionally similar players over the last year when compared to positionally similar players. Viktor Gyokeres, for comparison, ranks among the worst 20% of strikers.

On that evidence, he is sure to thrive when playing alongside the likes of Bukayo Saka and indeed Rogers if they were to both arrive.

Whether it be through the middle or out on the left, the Villa superstar is a fine asset, someone who combines running power and aggression with the ability to create and score in pretty equal measure.

During the 2024/25 season when the England international won the PFA Young Player of the Year award, Rogers scored on 14 occasions and also picked up 16 assists in all competitions. A season later he was scoring another 14 and supplying 12 goals for his teammates.

To have a player like that in and around you would no doubt be music to the ears of Alvarez. He thrives off quick combination play and so does Rogers. It feels like a match made in heaven and a partnership that could finally take Arsenal’s attack to the next level.

While they won the league last season, a lot of their build-up play was rather slow and predictable. Rogers is anything but predictable. He’s a maverick, a forward who will take players on and try to change the tempo of a game with a moment of magic. Alvarez is very much cut from a similar cloth.