Arsenal and Leicester City both have £25million offers rejected for West Brom star Jonny Evans
The Baggies turned down bids from the Gunners and the Foxes on Wednesday although Arsene Wenger's side still remain in pole position to sign former Manchester United defender
ARSENAL and Leicester City have both reportedly had £25million bids rejected for West Brom's Jonny Evans.
The Northern Ireland defender has become one of the window's most sought-after stars as a host of clubs chase his services.
The Gunners remain in pole position to land the 29-year-old under the noses of Manchester City.
But the Telegraph claim that both Arsene Wenger's and Craig Shakespeare's outfits had offers turned down on Wednesday.
Evans is believed to favour a switch to the Citizens with the former Manchester United ace still living in the North West.
However, Etihad chiefs need to offload first before they can even match an offer from their two top-flight rivals.
Pep Guardiola is desperate to add some defensive reinforcement to his ranks.
But if he succeeds in his effort to sign Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal and fails to offload centre-half Eliaquim Mangala then his hopes of landing Evans will be up in smoke.
But Wenger is hoping to exploit that scenario and launch another improved bid for him.
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It is also believed that that he offered to loan West Brom one of the club's promising youngsters as part of the original £25m offer.
The experienced defender has ironically been training at City's CFA headquarters all week prior to flying off with Northern Ireland for their World Cup qualifier in San Marino.
Meanwhile, the situation is hardly ideal for his international manager Michael O'Neill.
But the he is willing to be flexible if the situation demands it.
O'Neill said: “Until anything is agreed, whether it be with Manchester City, Arsenal or Leicester – and there's nothing to say another club won't come into the equation late in the day – we really can't put a process in place to be honest.
“Our intention is unless something changes dramatically between now and when we depart tomorrow morning, the situation as is with the 26 players and Jonny will be part of that. If something extreme happens and we have to try and facilitate that then we would look at that.
“It would have been great if it had have been done last week or wherever it's going be done. Of course it is. But the clubs aren't doing it, and rightly so, intentionally to make it more difficult for us. They have to do their own business without the consideration of internationals, it's made their job probably harder because players are all over the world now and that can't make it certainly any easier for the clubs to do it. Technology and the resources these clubs have mean it's possible to do it even if the player isn't in the vicinity at that minute in time.
“Whatever happens Jonny will be ready to play on Friday night, I've no doubts about that. It's a difficult situation for any player, for myself the manager and all international managers I'm sure. The window shuts tomorrow night but there's actually some games tomorrow night, I don't know how that's going to work for any players that are possibly involved.”
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