Hector Bellerin will meet Arsene Wenger for showdown talks over Arsenal future with Barcelona ready to recapture right-back
Defender is unsettled in north London after all his family returned to their Spanish home and left him alone
HECTOR BELLERIN’S future will be resolved in a meeting with Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger.
Bellerin has a date set with the Frenchman when he returns from holiday, after playing for Spain in this summer’s Euro Under-21 championships.
The full-back, regarded as one of the best young defenders in the game, still hankers for a move back to first club Barcelona.
The right-back has been linked with a return to Barca for months – with Arsenal refusing to talk business with the Catalan giants.
The Catalans have made the right-back their top target this summer as they attempt to fill the void left by Dani Alves.
It would likely take £35m plus for Arsenal to pull the trigger on a deal as Bellerin only signed a six-and-a-half-year deal last November.
The Spanish star is on a hefty £200,000-a-week with the Gunners but his family, including his mum and dad, have returned to Spain this summer and he wants to join them.
Bellerin has won two FA Cups with Arsenal but wants to progress his career and fight for the Champions League and league titles.
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The generous defender raised more than £19,000 for the British Red Cross to help the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The young defender revealed before the Under-21 European Championship that he would donate £50 for every minute he featured for Spain.
The 22-year-old featured in four out of five games for Albert Celades’s side – playing 381 minutes of football as they finished as losing finalists against Germany on Friday evening.
He missed out on the last group match game against Serbia which Spain won 1-0, after already securing their place in the semi-finals.
In June, Bellerin told Spanish paper Mundo Deportivo: “You never know what can happen, but I have a contract and when I finish my holidays after the Euros I will have to go back there.
“The truth is that every player of a top level wants to play in the Champions League, especially when I’ve been playing in it for two years.
“As a team, we didn’t achieve qualification and it’s something that we want to correct, but as a player, I repeat: it’s an important competition.
“It’s a great thing to know about the interest of a club like Barca, the club where I grew up. I don’t know anything at the moment. I’m an Arsenal player and we’ll see what happens.
“It’s always been very good in London, my family settled there with me, although now, for family reasons, they have had to return to Barcelona.
“I have a tougher time now because I’m a family person, I depend on them a lot, and it’ll be a new challenge to be without them.
"I haven't talked to anyone. I haven't talked to the club.
"I know a lot of things are being talked about but as a player, the club haven't told me anything, there has still not been any contact.
"A lot can happen this summer."