5 May 2026 15:58 BST |<\/span> Arsenal have been handed a blow in their pursuit of Bournemouth wonderkid Eli Junior Kroupi following confirmation that Barcelona have joined the race to sign him this summer.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old has enjoyed a sensational debut season at the Vitality Stadium, scoring 12 goals in just 30 Premier League games, and he has unsurprisingly emerged as a key transfer target for a number of elite European clubs ahead of the upcoming summer window.<\/p>\n The likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United have all sent scouts to watch him in action so far this term, as per multiple reports, while Arsenal are also eager to secure his signature amid their bid to add forward reinforcements before the start of next season.<\/p>\n Mikel Arteta\u2019s side have earmarked Kroupi as one of several options to replace Gabriel Jesus this summer, with the Brazilian widely expected to depart the Emirates Stadium after four years at the club, although they will face significant competition in the race to sign him.<\/p>\n In addition to the aforementioned Premier League clubs, Barcelona have now identified Kroupi as one of their targets for this summer, according to The Daily Mail<\/b>.<\/p>\n The Blaugrana are in the market for a new centre forward amid the uncertain future of Robert Lewandowski, who is yet to decide whether to leave Camp Nou on a Bosman deal or sign a new contract, and Kroupi has emerged as a possible replacement.<\/p>\n Atletico Madrid\u2019s Julian Alvarez remains Barca\u2019s top target, but Kroupi has been earmarked as an alternative target, alongside Chelsea superstar Joao Pedro.<\/p>\n Despite significant transfer interest in Kroupi, Bournemouth are reportedly reluctant to sell the France U21 international this summer, having lost Milos Kerkez, Dean Huijsen, Ilya Zabarnyi, Dango Ouattara and Antoine Semenyo in the last two transfer windows.<\/p>\n As a result, rumours have suggested that a fee in excess of \u20ac80 million will be required to land Kroupi, who still has four years remaining on his current contract at Bournemouth.<\/p>\n The Frenchman netted 23 goals in 32 games during his final season at Lorient before joining Bournemouth last year and although he has mostly played as a second-striker for the Cherries this term, only six players have scored more than his 12 Premier League goals in 2025-26.<\/p>\n Exclusive: Arsenal hold positive Tino Livramento talks<\/b><\/p>\n Exclusive: Arsenal told to pay \u20ac115m for Anthony Gordon<\/b><\/p>\n Transfer Rumours: Man Utd\u2019s \u20ac170m budget as Osimhen offer made<\/b><\/p>\n Check out FootballTransfers’ new app for all of football’s big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.<\/p>\n The FootballTransfers app is available on Google Play and in the Apple App Store. Download here:<\/p>\n \u2022Google Play<\/b><\/p>\n \u2022App Store<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 5 May 2026 15:58 BST | 4 min read \u00a9 IMAGO Arsenal have been handed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869","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=4869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Verdict: Bournemouth want to keep Eli Junior Kroupi<\/h2>\n
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