Bournemouth value Alex Scott at £100m. Three Premier League clubs want to test that number, and Arsenal are now one of them.

The Gunners have been added to Chelsea and Liverpool as serious suitors for the England international, according to football.london, with the January window opening in a matter of weeks.

Chelsea have been hunting Scott for longer. An initial summer bid of £60m, rising to £64m with add-ons, was turned down flat, and Bournemouth would only move in mid-season if the number got close to nine figures. Liverpool are understood to be keener than Arsenal on a January deal, with Mikel Arteta’s side preferring a summer move.

Scott has about 18 months left on his current contract and has turned down fresh terms at the Vitality Stadium, which gives Bournemouth two transfer windows to extract maximum value before his price starts to drop.

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Zubimendi’s “nothing to it” in Marca

The pursuit of Scott only makes sense if Arsenal clear a midfield spot, which is where Martin Zubimendi and Mikel Merino come in. Zubimendi has been linked with a return to La Liga, with Atletico Madrid mentioned. He used an interview with Marca on Wednesday to shut that down.

“There’s absolutely nothing to it, and I’m not close to anything,” Zubimendi told Marca of the Atletico link, adding that he had not contacted anyone and hoped to stay in London.

The Spain midfielder has played just 100 Premier League minutes this season after a heavy workload in the 2025-26 title campaign. He put the drop in minutes down to fatigue and to the increased competition Mikel Arteta had warned him about before the season began.

Merino’s quiet season

Merino’s situation is less noisy but just as awkward. The former Real Sociedad midfielder has made only one Premier League start this campaign and, with less than 18 months left on his Arsenal deal, has also been linked with a potential exit.

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Signing a £100m midfielder while two established internationals in the same role wait for clarity is the squeeze football.london has laid out. Scott is a more attacking profile than Zubimendi and overlaps more directly with Merino.

The Premier League winter transfer window opens on 1 January 2027.

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