Arsenal have opened talks with Bayer Leverkusen over Jarell Quansah, adding a second England defender to a search that has so far been defined by what they will not pay. Leverkusen do not regard the 23-year-old as for sale and are understood to want at least €50m, about £43m. Aston Villa want around £60m for Ezri Konsa. Arsenal have gone nowhere near either figure, and the season begins in a week with William Saliba unavailable and Jurriën Timber still unfit.
Two names, one profile
Quansah and Konsa are versions of the same idea. Both were in Thomas Tuchel's England squad at the World Cup, both are centre-backs by trade who can fill in at right-back, and a defender who covers both is precisely what Arsenal are short of. Quansah is 23 with four years left on his contract in Germany; Konsa is 28 with two. That gap is the argument for the younger man, and the reason the German club's asking price is the more defensible of the two.
Quite how far this has gone depends on who is describing it. The talks are put variously as opened directly with Leverkusen and as exploratory soundings made through intermediaries with no contact between the clubs at all. One reading is that sounding out Quansah is a way of pressing Villa on Konsa rather than a pursuit in its own right.