{"id":658443,"date":"2025-08-20T15:34:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=658443"},"modified":"2025-08-20T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T19:59:45","slug":"arsenal-eberechi-eze-tottenham-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/08\/20\/arsenal-eberechi-eze-tottenham-transfer\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Step Up Transfer Plans Following Havertz Blow Amid Tottenham Interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2024\/25 campaign was a frustrating one for Arsenal as they finished second in the Premier League without a major trophy. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/08\/10\/mikel-arteta-praises-martin-zubimendi\/\" target=\"_self\">Mikel Arteta<\/a> and his squad will be eager to make strides forward this season, and so far they have added some key new players to the squad. According to David Ornstein of <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/David_Ornstein\/status\/1958236444243464209\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic<\/a>, Arsenal have now made their move for Crystal Palace star Eberechi Eze following Kai Havertz\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n<h2>Arsenal Eager to Improve in 2025\/26<\/h2>\n<h3>Arsenal Make Their Move for Eberechi Eze<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/08\/17\/eberechi-eze-tottenham-hotspur-crystal-palace-transfer\/\" target=\"_self\">Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> had lined up a deal with Crystal Palace and Eze, but following Havertz\u2019s injury, Arsenal have made their move and are likely to secure the player, with Spurs turning to other targets. Arsenal had maintained interest in the 27-year-old, but Havertz\u2019s setback has accelerated their pursuit and seemingly allowed them to gazump their North London rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Eze, a boyhood Gunners fan who once played at the club\u2019s academy, would offer qualities Arteta\u2019s side lacked last season. He brings directness in possession and a genuine goal threat, highlighted by nine goals in his final 13 matches for Palace.<\/p>\n<h3>Eberechi Eze<\/h3>\n<p>The pressing ahead by Arsenal to finalise this deal despite the <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6565385\/2025\/08\/20\/arsenal-eberechi-eze-transfer-tottenham-latest\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00a360million<\/a> valuation from Palace shows the desire from Arteta to reinforce his attack. The signing of Eze is not a direct replacement for Havertz, but it will enable Arteta to be more flexible when picking his team.<\/p>\n<p>Eze can operate in the No. 10 role or on the left-hand side. He\u2019s brilliant at finding little pockets of space and turning the opposition before driving forward. He\u2019s great at threading decisive passes through to his teammates, which will be music to the ears of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/07\/06\/arsenal-viktor-gyokeres\/\" target=\"_self\">Viktor Gy\u00f6keres<\/a>. Arsenal need to close the gap on Liverpool and the best teams in Europe, and a signing like Eze will bolster their attacking threat for this season and beyond. Could this be the signing that turns them into title winners? Where will Tottenham go after seemingly missing out on Eze?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2024\/25 campaign was a frustrating one for Arsenal as they finished second in the Premier League without a major trophy. Mikel Arteta and his squad will be eager to make strides forward this season, and so far they have added some key new players to the squad. According to David Ornstein of The Athletic, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":653786,"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":[3,8,12,24],"tags":[32320,5037,7466],"class_list":["post-658443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-arsenal","category-crystal-palace","category-tottenham","tag-arsenal-transfer-rumours","tag-eberechi-eze","tag-tottenham-hotspur-transfer-rumours"],"modified_by":"Ricky Carroll, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658443","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\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658443"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658451,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658443\/revisions\/658451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}