Arsenal Targets Antonio Nusa for Flank Rebuild

Arsenal’s summer rebuild on the flanks is starting to look less like fine‑tuning and more like a full-scale operation.

Leandro Trossard has gone, the Premier League title must be defended, and Mikel Arteta knows he cannot go into the new season with Gabriel Martinelli as his only senior, natural left winger. Not with the calendar Arsenal are facing. Not with the standards they have set.

So the search has accelerated. And now it has a clear name at the top of the list: Antonio Nusa.

Arsenal move on Nusa as Leipzig hold firm

Arsenal are preparing an opening bid of around €40 million (£34 million) for the RB Leipzig winger, a player whose reputation exploded at the 2026 World Cup. The number is serious. The competition is even more so.

Leipzig are understood to value the 21-year-old closer to €60 million (£52 million). That gap between what the Bundesliga club want and what the Premier League champions are ready to put on the table is where this transfer story will live over the coming weeks.

And Arsenal are not alone.

Liverpool have also circled Nusa, identifying him as a more attainable option than Yan Diomande after their move for Diomande’s Leipzig teammate collapsed. For them, Nusa is the alternative. For Arsenal, he is starting to look like a priority.

What has driven that? His summer for Norway changed the conversation.

Nusa helped his country into the quarter-finals and produced one of the tournament’s standout moments with a brilliant solo goal against Ivory Coast, the kind of run that turns defenders inside out and executives into bidders. It confirmed what scouts had been whispering: this is a winger who wants the ball, wants the duel, and has the pace to make those demands matter.

A different weapon for Arteta’s left side

Arteta’s need on the left is obvious. Trossard’s move to Besiktas stripped away experience and end product from that flank. Martinelli remains the first-choice option, but behind him the depth chart thins quickly.

Nusa would not just be cover. He would change the profile of that side of the pitch.

His game is built on explosive acceleration, direct running and an eagerness to isolate full-backs one-on-one. He drives at defenders rather than circling around them. For an Arsenal side that often faces low blocks and needs players who can unpick compact shapes without always relying on intricate combinations, that raw, vertical threat has real value.

At 21, he is still a project. The ceiling is high, the experience at the very top level still relatively light. That is precisely why Leipzig can demand a premium and why clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool are willing to consider paying it.

But even if Nusa walks through the doors at London Colney, Arsenal’s work on that flank should not be considered done.

Why Nusa alone doesn’t solve the problem

Inside the club, the appeal of Morgan Rogers has not faded. The Aston Villa attacker offers something Nusa cannot yet match: proven Premier League minutes and positional versatility.

Rogers can operate from the left or slide into a central role behind the striker. That flexibility matters in a squad that has to navigate domestic and European campaigns, cup runs and inevitable injuries. He is less of a pure touchline winger, more of a modern hybrid forward who can link play and still threaten goal.

The ideal scenario for Arsenal is obvious. They land both.

Rogers would be expected to challenge for a starting role immediately, raising the level of the first XI and giving Arteta a different type of left-sided creator. Nusa, in that picture, becomes the high-upside competitor to Martinelli, a player who can be rotated in, developed, and gradually moulded into one of Europe’s most dangerous wide forwards.

That is the kind of depth title-winning teams carry. That is the kind of depth Arsenal have lacked in recent years when the schedule has tightened and legs have tired.

Arteta knows the demands of going again after a title win. The Premier League will not slow down for them. Europe will not wait. If Arsenal are serious about building a squad that can absorb that strain and still play with the same intensity in April as in August, two high-quality, left-sided attackers may not be a luxury at all.

They may be the price of staying on top.