Arsenal of England youth team striker, Folarin Balogun is under pressure from The Gunners’ head coach, Mikel Arteta for him to sign a new contract offered him at Emirates Stadium, megasportsarena.com reports.
Arteta has spoken out for the umpteenth time, following speculation that Balogun is not happy with terms of the new deal put before him and, now that he is in the final six months of his contract, lots of transfer options are already coming his way.
That has concretised talk about the possibility of the Nigerian-born lad leaving Emirates Stadium as a free agent in June, but Arteta has now reiterated that he is trying to convince the fast-growing attacker to stay, even as he adds action to words by regularly inviting him to first-team training sessions.
However, while the 19-year-old Balogun has developed through the ranks at Emirates Stadium and keeps knocking on the senior team, he has not been included in the club’s English Premier League match squads, despite playing as substitute in the UEFA Europa League and League Cup.
Despite also shining for Arsenal’s under-23 team this season, Balogun’s last competitive outing for Arteta’s side was in December, when he went on as a 77th-minute substitute in a 4-1 League Cup defeat to Manchester City.
The youngster earlier on scored his first professional goal in the Europa League against Molde in November 2020 and he has two goals in four appearances in the competition so far, but there is widespread talk that his contract situation is causing disaffection at Emirates Stadium.
That, though, is one speculation Arteta denies emphatically, even as suspense lingers over a renewal of his contract, which is set to expire in June and both parties are stalled over renewal talks.
Arteta reacted thus: “We’re trying to get something done because we want him to stay and we have to go step-by-step. If anything – regarding his contractual situation with the club – I just wanted to convince him that he has a future at the club, not send him the opposite message.
“Before he wasn’t training with the first team, we changed that and he’s been training with us a lot. He’s improving every single day, he’s showing a real hunger and decided to be with us.
“I think he’s made some big steps in the last few months, where he wasn’t even training and then he had a few good games for us. So the steps are there in every way and we want to try to keep him.”
