Mikel Arteta responds to claims that Julian Alvarez has been ignoring his phone calls

Reports had emerged from Spain yesterday that Julian Alvarez had not been answering Mikel Arteta’s calls.

Arteta will have been trying his best to convince the Argentine to join the Premier League champions, especially now that his dream move to Barcelona is seemingly impossible.

Whether these claims were true or not is another thing, but nonetheless the Arsenal manager was bizarrely asked about it in his press conference ahead of the Aston Villa game.

I don’t know what the journalist was expecting, but Arteta responded in typical Arteta fashion.

“You know I’m not going to make comments on that publicly,” Arteta said. “That would be doing a different job.”

He makes sure to never talk about other players at the best of times, and he’s certainly not going to entertain a question like that.

Nonetheless, behind the scenes he will surely be pushing hard to get a deal for Alvarez done.

Atletico Madrid’s board have today released an official statement unanimously backing the club’s decision not to sell Alvarez to Barcelona.

That door is definitely shut now, surely, making Arsenal the frontrunners to sign him should he leave Spain.

The player’s situation at Atletico is being described as ‘untenable’ after he was booed and whistled at by his own fans following the Villarreal match last weekend.

Atletico have even sounded up potential replacements, having made contact with the representatives of Jonathan David.

And with the window closing on Tuesday, all three parties will want clarity on the situation as soon as possible.