Turkish club Fenerbahçe have held potential talks to sign Greek defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Arsenal in the January transfer window.
The 32-year-old has effectively been frozen out of the first squad after not being named in the Gunners squads for the Premier League and Europa League for this season. The defender has fallen down in the pecking order under Mikel Arteta and is desperate for a move away from North London in the upcoming transfer window.
Reports claim that the player’s agent has already held preliminary talks with Fenerbahçe who are ready to take the player off of Arsenal’s hands.
The Turkish giants are looking to address their defensive woes and have already conceded 20 goals in 14 games this season. The club’s hierarchy believe that bringing in Sokratis can stabilize their defense and are planning to make an offer in the upcoming window.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta had already announced publicly that the club was going to engage in significant outgoing transfer business in order to make more space for future incomings.
“We cannot sustain the numbers that we have in certain positions. There are some players that are going to go on loan and going to leave, and that is the priority. Then we will see if we have the right opportunity in the positions where we need some more help.”
It is clear from Arteta’s statement that the club will be looking to clear out the massively sub-par defenders at the club, with the trio of Mustafi, Sokratis and David Luiz all expected to be part of the clearance. Left-back Sead Kolasinac has already left on loan to his former Schalke on loan for the remainder of the season and Sokratis is expected to follow suit in January.
Sokratis had joined Arsenal back in 2018 on a £18 million transfer from Borussia Dortmund and made over 70 appearances for the club over the past two seasons. However, the Greece international is yet to make an appearance for the Arsenal senior team this season and has been forced to play for the U-23s to keep up his fitness levels.
Arsenal will be keen to offload the player in the January window and try and regain some of his transfer fee as part of a deal as opposed to letting him leave for free in the summer. There have been rumors of exiled midfielder Mesut Ozil meeting with Fenerbahçe representatives as well and we could see a double move by the Turkish club for Ozil and Sokratis in the upcoming window.
