Atlético Madrid president Enrique Cerezo has bluntly quashed any transfer speculation linking Julián Alvarez with a summer exit.
The Argentine World Cup winner only joined Atlético last summer, leaving Manchester City in a deal worth a swollen £81.5 million ($110 million). Alvarez enjoyed an impressive debut campaign, rattling in an unrivalled 29 goals across all competitions while providing the feverish work rate which Diego Simeone demands.
Alvarez did so well that a glut of Premier League sides reportedly let their interest in taking the forward quickly back to England be known. Arsenal were billed as the “strongest bidder”, although Liverpool have also been regularly linked with the 25-year-old.
President Cerezo was keen to snuff out these probing whispers before they grew in volume. “Julián Alvarez is an Atlético de Madrid player and will be an Atlético de Madrid player,” he told MARCA while at the launch of a new restaurant in the Spanish capital.
“There are a lot of players being talked about, and more and more are being talked about,” Cerezo noted when looking more broadly at the transfer window. ”We’ll have to see who the choice is.
“There always has to be new developments. The coaching staff is working to move forward, to try to build a team as good as the one we had. And if not, at least as good as the one we had.”
Rather than offloading Alvarez, Atlético could buy him a new strike partner. Simeone’s side have been credited with interest in the sought-after striker Viktor Gyökeres in recent days. The Sporting CP centre-forward is widely considered to be a long-term target for Arsenal among numerous other European suitors, after racking up 97 goals in 102 games across the past two seasons.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Arsenal, Liverpool Sent Official Julian Alvarez Transfer Message.