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Benfica president Rui Costa has quashed rumors linking the club's left-back Alex Grimaldo with a move to Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta is reportedly in the market for a new left-back due to injury doubts around Kieran Tierney. The Spaniard also wants a player to compete with Nuno Tavares, who was unconvincing in his first season at the Emirates Stadium.
According to The Sun, the North London club have made a £5.9 million offer for Grimaldo, who could become an understudy for Tierney at the Gunners. However, speaking to Mais Futebol, Portugal legend Costa seemed baffled as to where the rumor had originated.
Costa stated, as quoted by The Mirror:
"I’m going to talk to him now, see if he’s okay. Grimaldo is like all the other players, he is working and in time we will."
Costa was then asked by another reporter to see if Arsenal had made a bid, to which he replied:
"You [the press] have been saying that. None of this came to me. I don’t know where that came from."
Grimaldo has played 249 times for the Lisbon giants since moving from Barcelona in December of 2015, having failed to play a first-team game for the Blaugrana.
Though the defender is yet to gain a senior cap for Spain, he is a highly-rated player, who only has one year left on his current deal at Benfica.
Mikel Arteta provides injury update on Arsenal defender Kieran Tierney
Although impressive on the pitch, the Scotland left-back has been plagued by injuries during his time at the Emirates Stadium after moving from Celtic in 2019.
A knee injury kept Tierney out of Arsenal's run-in towards the end of the most recent campaign. The 25-year-old's absence was seen as a key reason why the Gunners missed out on a top-four place in the Premier League.
Tierney lasted just 30 minutes of his team's pre-season victory over Nurnberg on Friday, which fans feared was due to a fresh knock. However, speaking after the 5-3 win, Arteta told reporters, as quoted by The Metro:
"He’s really good. He’s been training really good. Obviously, he’s been out for over three months now so we wanted to give him a proper warm-up, play the first half an hour and then get him out. So he was in good condition and there’s no issues there."
