Chelsea, Arsenal & Manchester City are all bidding for a classy £52m forward – but where should he go?

If Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo are to be believed, the list of clubs in the market for RB Leipzig’s Dani Olmo is pretty long – and it includes three Premier League sides, all of whom are competing with the usual suspects in La Liga for a 25-year-old who has established himself as being worthy of a place in Europe’s elite thanks to his performances in the Bundesliga and for his national team.

Reports in Germany suggest that Olmo is looking to leave Leipzig in the summer of 2024, and he has a release clause in his contract that allows him to leave for €60m (£51.9m) – which, in the current market, looks about right for an extremely classy player who can play on either flank and as a number ten. Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea are all cited in the Spanish report as possible destinations.

Olmo offers an awful lot, apart from his versatility – he’s got superb technique and is fantastic at making space for a pass or shot under pressure, has excellent playmaking skills matched with impressive vision, and is a real team player, both in the way he looks to bring players around him into attacks and also in his tireless and highly effective pressing.

Barcelona are supposedly keen – Olmo came through the ranks at La Masia before making the unusual but effective decision to join Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb – but money will, as always, be an issue for the Catalan club, while Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid are also in the market. But if he does decide on a move to the Premier League, which of the three clubs in the chase would make the most sense for him?

Chelsea

It may seem strange for Chelsea to be in the market for yet another player who spends most of his minutes on the left wing, but while they certainly don’t need yet another body in that position there is a strong argument for bringing him in as a number ten.

That role was earmarked for Olmo’s injured former team-mate Christopher Nkunku, but none of Chelsea’s other players have really made that role their own in Nkunku’s absence, while the Frenchman may well be wanted up front given the relative early struggles of Nicolas Jackson and Armando Broja.

Olmo and Nkunku had an excellent on-field understanding at Leipzig that produced a lot of goals, and rekindling that link-up could pay dividends. The only downside is that where Nkunku is a proven goalscorer, Olmo is more of a provider – he’s into his fifth season with the German side but only has 15 league goals for them, one fewer than Nkunku managed last season alone. Chelsea badly need goals, and with their other forwards failing to provide them right now, there’s a legitimate question of whether their best target is really a forward who doesn’t bag too many himself.

Manchester City

Given that he’s a technically excellent, passing forward who’s happy playing second fiddle to a central striker and is excellent in a pressing unit, Olmo’s profile looks perfectly suited for a Pep Guardiola side – so you can see why they’d be interested.

The only question is, frankly, where he’d fit in – City don’t need bodies on the left wing, where he plays most frequently, and while he’s good through the centre he isn’t used to shuttling between the front line and deeper areas of the pitch as Guardiola typically wants his central players to do. He could easily make it work, of course, but there would be some adaptation required.

Given the presence of Jack Grealish, Phil Foden and Jérémy Doku, it’s tough to see exactly why City would need him, even if he’s the kind of player they typically go for – but Guardiola is seldom shy of moving players on to accommodate someone he feels is an even better fit, so while we suspect their rumoured interest is no more than paper talk, we can understand where the link is coming from.

Arsenal

The Gunners are another side where Olmo would ostensibly fit well – Mikel Arteta’s broad tactical scheme is very similar to Guardiola’s and the same overlaps between tactics and playing profile exist. As with City, the question is more over where he’d play given that Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka have the wings nailed down.

Arsenal definitely have less depth than City in the wide areas, however, so the argument for Arsenal getting involved in the bidding war is much stronger. Arsenal have coped remarkably well with recent injuries to both of their first-choice wide forwards, but there’s no doubt that they lose something when either is unavailable, and adding Olmo into the mix could greatly strengthen their forward line.

The biggest downside for Arsenal is simply that they don’t have an Erling Haaland-type striker who can carry the goalscoring burden on his own – they rely heavily on goals from their inside forwards, and while Olmo would fit right in in terms of playing style, he won’t score as many as Martinelli or Saka.

Olmo is a fabulously gifted player who has the ability to improve any of the three Premier League teams alleged by the Spanish press to be keeping tabs on him – but although there are good reasons for any of them to sign him, he isn’t necessarily a perfect fit. In any case he may well prefer to make his way back to Spain if given the chance, and is purportedly most keen on a move back to Barcelona if given the chance – although whether they can afford the €60m outlay is unclear given their recent economic turmoil. If he does end up moving to the Premier League, however, the league would certainly be all the richer for it, and whoever signs him will get a very good player indeed – as long as they can figure out how best to use him.