Martinelli: Al-Hilal in talks with Arsenal, who want around £60m
David Ornstein reported on 23 August that Al-Hilal are in talks with Arsenal and with Gabriel Martinelli, that the club want around £60m and that the Brazilian is open to leaving after turning down Turkey. No agreement exists at this stage.
⚠️ UPDATE (30/08) — This story has since concluded: a £55.7m agreement, a club-record sale. The full picture is in the 30 August article.
For six weeks we were told Gabriel Martinelli’s exit would run through Italy. Roma in July, Napoli and Inter in August, Juventus in the background. Plenty of names, plenty of “talks with his representatives”, and not a single offer lodged. On Sunday evening David Ornstein moved the file all at once, and not from the direction anyone was watching.
What is confirmed
David Ornstein (The Athletic) reported on 23 August that Al-Hilal are working to sign Martinelli. His wording is short and it says exactly where things stand: “No agreement yet but talks ongoing between clubs + with 25yo winger.” No agreement, but discussions under way between the two clubs and with the player.
He also supplies the two elements this file had been missing all summer. First a price: Arsenal want “in the region of £60m”. Then the position of the man himself, which is the part that changes everything, because the Brazilian is open to the possibility after turning down Turkey.
It is the first time all summer that a top-tier source has put all three elements together on the same file: a named club, a fee, a player willing to listen. On 14 August we had the fee without the player, when Martinelli’s camp told Arsenal that Galatasaray was not an option. Since then we have had clubs named without a single offer.
What is not confirmed
Everything else, and Ornstein is the first to say so. There is no agreement between Arsenal and Al-Hilal, no contract agreement with the player, no medical, no announced timetable. A club negotiating is not a club signing, and there are eight days left before the English window shuts on 1 September.
Two readings are circulating around the story that come from relays rather than from Ornstein. TeamTalk suggests that the £34m arrival of Christos Tzolis finally lifts the condition Arsenal have repeated since July, namely that no winger leaves before a replacement is signed. The same outlet links this sale to funding the Julián Álvarez file. Both are plausible reasonings, neither is sourced to the club, and we present them as such.
The context
Arsenal paid around £6m to take Martinelli from Ituano in the winter of 2019, when he was seventeen and had been working in a factory only months earlier. At £60m the profit would be close to £54m. It is also more than the £51.3m asked of Galatasaray nine days ago, which is no great surprise when the buyer comes from Saudi Arabia.
On the pitch, the mood of recent weeks made this outcome readable. Martinelli was left out of the squad for the Community Shield against Manchester City, then out of the one for the league opener against Coventry, with no injury announced. Ian Wright said publicly on 22 August that the way the player was being treated made him uncomfortable, and that Martinelli had not been told what was going on. A winger who won the title in May and is missing from the first two occasions of the following season is never an accident of squad management.
He is also entering the final year of his contract, with Arsenal holding an extension option. Sell now, or negotiate a renewal: the club does not have many doors.
Sources and reliability
- David Ornstein (The Athletic), relayed by TeamTalk and CaughtOffside, 23/08: Al-Hilal in talks with Arsenal and with the player, £60m asking price, player open to leaving. Maximum reliability on Arsenal matters.
- LiveScore / Football365, 23/08: the profit calculation, around £54m on a £6m purchase. A relay, not a primary source.
- TeamTalk, 23/08, for the Tzolis and Álvarez framing: the outlet’s own analysis, not sourced to the club.
- Earlier stages for the record: Ornstein, Romano and Plettenberg on 14/08 for the Galatasaray rejection; SportBible and Football365 on 22/08 for Ian Wright’s intervention.
Our rating: RELIABLE, at the talks stage. The file does not move to “player agreement” or “clubs agreed”, because the source himself writes that no agreement exists. What rises is our confidence in what is being reported, and it rises a lot: Ornstein is the best byline available on Arsenal.
What we make of it
The substance has not really changed since late June, when Arteta told Martinelli he could leave. What has changed is the destination the player is willing to consider. He turned down Istanbul at 25 and is listening to Riyadh a fortnight later, which says plenty about what he has understood of his standing at Arsenal over two team sheets.
That said, until Al-Hilal actually put the £60m on the table, this deal can still die the way the Turkish one died. We are following it, we are not burying it, and we are certainly not signing it on their behalf.