Could well be a bluff
After weeks of speculation, Memphis Depay and Houssem Aouar will both stay put at Lyon for this season, reports claim.
A Lyon source told RCM that neither player would leave in this transfer window despite strong links suggesting Memphis would join Barcelona once Luis Suarez had left and Aouar becoming the subject of a tug of war between Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain.
Both players will train with Lyon on Saturday and will be in the squad for their fixture against Marseille in a fixture I’m almost certain nobody calls the Olympique derby, but they definitely should.
Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas had publicly scoffed at Arsenal’s opening bid for Auoar, suggesting he would not accept less than €40m for his star playmaker.
This report could be a power play from Aulas, as he tried to pressure both Barcelona and Arsenal into paying big money for their desired players. A savvy operator, Aulas knows exactly what he’s doing in the transfer market, so don’t rule out the possibility of one or both of them leaving as the clock ticks down on October 5th.
But former Arsenal winger Jeff-Reine Adélaïde could still leave Lyon to join Hertha Berlin for a fee in the region of €27 million before the end of the window, reports claim.
