Arsenal's Midfield Plans: Guimaraes or Scott?
Arsenal’s summer midfield plan is starting to look like a high‑stakes game of chicken.
Mikel Arteta wants Bruno Guimaraes. Arsenal have made that perfectly clear. Two times they’ve tested Newcastle’s resolve with unofficial offers – £55 million first, then £65m. Two times they’ve been swatted away.
Newcastle’s message has not changed: their captain is not for sale. Not at those numbers. Not close.
Arsenal, though, are preparing to come again. This time with an official £70m bid, formally lodged rather than floated through intermediaries and back channels. A proper offer for a player who has already agreed personal terms with the club and is viewed inside the Emirates as the ideal piece to elevate an already elite midfield.
The problem? Everyone around Newcastle is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Fabrizio Romano expects a rejection. Local reporter Lee Ryder does too. Sources spoken to by TEAMtalk went even harder, branding the incoming bid “not welcome, not wanted and will not be accepted.” That’s not the language of a club softening its stance. That’s a door being held firmly shut.
Newcastle value Guimaraes in the £90m–£100m bracket. Arsenal are still thirty million or so short of that ceiling. At some point, even for a player Arteta and Edu clearly adore, the numbers start to bend the strategy.
And so, a contingency plan is already in place.
Plan B: Alex Scott
If Newcastle hold their line, Arsenal will pivot. According to CaughtOffside, the decision has already been made internally: Alex Scott is the alternative.
At 22, the Bournemouth midfielder represents a different profile to Guimaraes – younger, less proven at the very top, but with a ceiling that has Europe’s biggest clubs circling. Inside Arsenal, he’s now regarded as the primary back‑up option, the player they will move for if the Guimaraes pursuit finally hits a wall.
This isn’t a new infatuation. Arsenal have already tested Bournemouth’s resolve once this summer and were knocked back. Scott has since refused to sign a new contract with the Cherries, but Bournemouth are digging in, buoyed by the prospect of their first ever European campaign and determined not to lose a cornerstone of Andoni Iraola’s project.
That hasn’t scared anyone off.
Earlier this week, Chelsea tried to blow the door off its hinges with a £64m bid for Scott. It was rejected. Ben Jacobs reported the offer and underlined that Chelsea’s midfield planning is ongoing, with Scott a major part of that thinking despite the failure to agree a fee.
Bournemouth’s stance is clear: they do not want to sell. Not now. Not on the eve of a historic season for the club.
So Arsenal find themselves in a familiar position. One elite target priced into the stratosphere by a club with no need to sell. One emerging star protected by a club determined to keep its core together. Two midfielders, two brick walls.
If CaughtOffside’s information holds and Arsenal do turn to Scott in the event Guimaraes stays put, they already know the starting point. Chelsea’s £64m has set the floor, not the ceiling. To change Bournemouth’s mind, Arsenal will have to go significantly higher.
The question now is simple and brutal: how far are Arsenal prepared to go, and for which midfielder do they push their chips fully into the middle of the table?
