Nico Williams: What Arsenal need to sign Bilbao winger

According to Telegraph Sport, if Arsenal wants to recruit the Spain winger this summer, they will need to place Nico Williams in their highest salary range.

The 22-year-old has long been admired by Arsenal, who had looked at signing him from Athletic Bilbao during past transfer windows.

Arsenal is starting to formally outline their ambitions for a summer of major squad investment now that Andrea Berta, their new sporting director, is in north London.

In addition to Williams’ estimated £50 million release clause at Athletic, the winger’s pay requirements provide another difficulty.

Williams already receives a hefty salary in Spain; it is estimated that, after taxes, he makes much more than £100,000 a week. This is mostly due to Athletic’s unusual policy of only using players from the Basque Country.

Because of this philosophy, the club hardly ever pays large transfer fees for new players. In fact, they paid rival Basque team Real Sociedad a club-record transfer price of under £27 million in 2018 for defender Iñigo Martinez. Athletic has only spent about £24 million on transfers since the summer of 2019.

Instead, they can allocate a substantial amount of resources to their salary. In order to keep the top local players on their first squad, they must also offer significant salary.

According to sources who spoke to Telegraph Sport, the winger’s agents would like him to be paid in line with high-profile players like Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz, and Bukayo Saka, who are thought to make around £250,000 per week.

Arsenal are also looking at signing a striker and a midfielder, with Gyokores and Zubimendi high on the list.