{"id":22633,"date":"2026-07-29T15:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=22633"},"modified":"2026-07-29T15:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T15:16:12","slug":"bradley-barcola-marcus-rashford-and-arsenals-vinicius-junior-alternatives-ranked-as-gunners-face-missing-out-on-real-madrid-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=22633","title":{"rendered":"Bradley Barcola, Marcus Rashford and Arsenal&#8217;s Vinicius Junior alternatives ranked as Gunners face missing out on Real Madrid star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"article-body\">\n<div>\n<p style=\"text-align:start\"><span>A long-term Arsenal target, there is a sense that Nico Williams&#8217; stock has dropped somewhat over the course of the last couple of seasons, and that could mean it&#8217;s finally the perfect moment for Arsenal to strike.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:start\"><span>Since he took Euro 2024 by storm, the winger has been hampered by niggling injuries which, in turn, have affected his output. The 24-year-old only made 25 La Liga appearances last season after dramatically snubbing a transfer to Barcelona in favour of staying with Athletic Club, providing 10 goal contributions &#8211; modest numbers for a player of his quality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:start\"><span>But while this would be something of a gamble if his fitness issues persist, it has been widely reported that the <\/span><span>remarkable 10-year contract Williams signed<\/span><span>  last summer includes a \u20ac90m (\u00a377m\/$103m) release clause, which should be well within the Gunners&#8217; means for a marquee signing.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A long-term Arsenal target, there is a sense that Nico Williams&#8217; stock has dropped somewhat&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}