£40m Wilfried Zaha offer must have Celtic laughing

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Arsenal’s reported £40m opening bid for Wilfried Zaha should have Celtic chiefs chuckling.

The BBC has reported that Crystal Palace will reject the bid. Instead, they apparently want closer to £80m for their star-man. The Gunners, meanwhile, want the bid to be lower. Their £40m offer, however, is just their first attempt at bagging Zaha.

That’s the same Zaha who couldn’t cut it at rivals Manchester United, managing four appearances in a two-year association with the club. Granted, he’s produced some terrific numbers for Palace over the last year in particular. 10 goals and 10 assists last season reads well for the winger.

But at the same time, Celtic are struggling to reel £25m out of Arsenal’s coffers for one of the best left-backs in Britain. When you compare the opening offer for Zaha to Arsenal’s opening bid for Tierney, it’s a blatant insult as Chris Sutton believes (Daily Record).

Arsenal can look around the Premier League if they want, but they won’t find better value than £25m for Tierney. With the Champions League experience and winning mentality that Tierney holds – both of which Zaha can’t relate to – it shows that Celtic can push Arsenal if necessary.

Wilfried Zaha is a fine footballer, but £40m worth?

This isn’t a go at Zaha either. He’s a terrific footballer, and being in the Premier League naturally sees your value go up. If you want another example, just look at the reported figures for John McGinn after a season in the Championship (Scottish Sun).

But it shows that Arsenal has the money to meet Celtic’s asking price IF they feel they want him enough. The £40m opening offer, and it’s important to remember it’s an opening offer, for Zaha proves just that.

The simple fact is that if Tierney was playing in the Premier League, £40m isn’t far away from what a club like Arsenal would have to pay for him.

Celtic can also point to the success and rapid growth of Andy Robertson at Liverpool when it comes to the potential of a player such as Tierney. The growth still to come from the Hoops full-back is frightening. And by paying such a huge amount for Zaha, they’ve shown they have money to splash and cash to easily reach the £25m mark Celtic reportedly want (Daily Mail).

Bearing in mind it still remains to be seen just how much Arsenal pay for Zaha. If it rises to £60m, they can’t say to Celtic that they would be pushing the boat out in paying £25m for Tierney.

But as it stands, it just looks as though Arsenal don’t want him enough if the Zaha bid is anything to go by.