{"id":652941,"date":"2025-03-22T13:56:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T17:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=652941"},"modified":"2026-01-30T15:46:46","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T20:46:46","slug":"arsenal-nico-williams-pursuit-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/03\/22\/arsenal-nico-williams-pursuit-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Lead Race for &#8216;Incredible&#8217; La Liga Winger Signing Over Bundesliga Heavyweights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal have had their struggles with forward players in the 2024\/25 season, with injury issues causing them to operate midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/03\/04\/arsenal-predicted-lineup-vs-psv\/\" target=\"_self\">Mikel Merino in a centre-forward role<\/a>. The Gunners seem keen on improving the depth of their frontline and have received a positive update on Spain winger Nico Williams.<\/p>\n<h2>Arsenal Lead Race for Nico Williams Signing From Athletic Bilbao<\/h2>\n<h3>Which Team Are Competing for Williams Signing With Arsenal?<\/h3>\n<p>German outlet Bild&#8217;s reporter Christian Falk has now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.caughtoffside.com\/2025\/03\/21\/arsenal-ahead-bayern-summer-transfer\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reported<\/a> that the Gunners are leading the race to sign the Athletic Bilbao speedster in the 2025 summer transfer window. He insists that Bayern Munich are not in the lead over this potential signing and that Williams is actually &#8220;closer&#8221; to a move to the Premier League side in the summer over the Bundesliga side.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/03\/07\/arsenal-benjamin-sesko\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Arsenal Lead The Race For Bundesliga Forward<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Falk has also claimed that Williams remains very high on the German side&#8217;s wishlist, but they need to sell players first to be able to afford him. This means that the Gunners hold an advantage at this moment to sign the Spanish winger, who was one of Spain&#8217;s best players in Euro 2024. Arsenal have the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard for the left wing role, but still seem to be eager to improve that position with the impactful Spaniard.<\/p>\n<h3>How Much Could Williams Signing Cost Arsenal?<\/h3>\n<p>The Athletic Bilbao man surprised many by opting against making a move to a major European side after his heroics in Euro 2024. Arsenal, however, seem to have retained their interest in him after it has been reported that the 23-year-old currently has a \u00a348.6 million release clause in his contract, which can be triggered to sign him from the La Liga club.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Read More<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">:\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2024\/11\/27\/arsenal-ethan-nwaneri-contract-extension-priority\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Arsenal \u2018Optimistic\u2019 in Priority Talks Over New Long-Term Contract For \u2018Extra Special\u2019 Midfielder<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Williams recently impressed for Spain in their 2-2 draw against the Netherlands in the UEFA Nations League, scoring a nice goal. The 22-year-old, who was hailed for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/sport\/football\/article\/england-vs-spain-euro-2024-final-wayne-rooney-kobbie-mainoo-nico-williams-preview-wjgqxzvk3\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his &#8220;incredible threat&#8221;<\/a> in one-v-one situations, has scored nine goals and provided seven assists in 37 appearances for his club so far in the 2024\/25 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arsenal have had their struggles with forward players in the 2024\/25 season, with injury issues causing them to operate midfielder Mikel Merino in a centre-forward role. The Gunners seem keen on improving the depth of their frontline and have received a positive update on Spain winger Nico Williams. Arsenal Lead Race for Nico Williams Signing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4218,"featured_media":652782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,7188],"tags":[32739,32738],"class_list":["post-652941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-arsenal","category-rumours","tag-arsenal","tag-arsenal-fixtures"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652941"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652966,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652941\/revisions\/652966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}