Arsenal have already been given a boost in their attempts to sign RB Leipzig defender Ibrahima Konate.
As per the Evening Standard, the Gunners are one of several clubs across Europe interested in signing the 21-year-old ahead of the summer transfer window.
Having offloaded Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis in January, the report states that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta could lose several more central defenders in the summer amid talk of David Luiz, Calum Chambers, and Dinos Mavropanos all leaving.
Therefore, it would appear he wants to sign Konate in order to increase his options that could include Gabriel Magalhaes, Rob Holding, Pablo Mari, and William Saliba at the start of next season.
And the chances of Konate leaving RB Leipzig in the summer seem pretty high after the club's CEO Oliver Mintzlaff revealed in January that their future transfer business hinges on further player sales.
"What I can rule out after the Szoboszlai transfer is that we will get more players this winter or summer without us giving up any," said Mintzlaff, as per SportBuzzer.
"If it makes financial sense and we can absorb it sportily.
"When I think of Werner, Cunha, Keita or Demme, we have already redeemed a lot and still developed further in terms of sport."
Mintzlaff's comments could alert Gunners technical director Edu as well as Arteta as squad planning for the summer transfer window is already underway.
With that said, Leipzig have already sold Dayot Upamecano to Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich after his £38m release clause was activated and it seems unlikely they would be happy to lose Konate in the same summer.
However, they may be powerless to prevent that from happening as according to Sport BILD, the 21-year-old has a €45m (£38m) release clause in his contract.
That means if the Gunners are able to trigger the release clause they would simply just need to agree personal terms - not to mention fending off competition from the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea - to sign Konate.
