Atlético Madrid to double Thomas Partey’s salary to fend off Arsenal interest

Atlético Madrid has offered the midfielder Thomas Partey a new deal until 2025 in the hope of fending off bids from rival clubs, including Arsenal.

The Premier League club has expressed the strongest interest so far in the 26-year-old Ghanaian. Arsenal has yet to submit an official bid although they have made contact with the player’s agent. Partey has a release clause of €50m (£43.6m) and the Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, is keen to add him to his squad in the summer.

“I’m planning two or three different scenarios that we can face,” Arteta told Sky this month. “Depending on one of those three, we will be able to do more, less or nothing. We have to react daily. We don’t know what the financial situation is going to be, we don’t know the rules, the timing, the window. There are so many things we cannot control at the moment.”

Atlético’s new offer, however, would double Partey’s current salary of £65,000 a week and increase the release clause to more than €100m (£87.2m). The Atlético manager, Diego Simeone, is desperate to keep Partey, whose current deal runs out in 2023, at the club and has urged the hierarchy to offer him a deal that would enable him to stay.

Partey has been with the club since 2013. Atlético is sixth in La Liga, 13 points behind Barcelona, but through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League after eliminating the holders Liverpool in the last 16.

Source: citisportsonline