Arsenal Transfer News: Daniele Rugani Fee Emerges, Robert Lewandowski Revelation

Arsenal are reportedly lining up a January bid for Juventus centre-back Daniele Rugani.

According to Italian outlet Calciomercato (h/t the Independent's James Orr), the Gunners will launch a bid of around £13 million for the 21-year-old Italian in the new year.

Rugani has spent the last two seasons with Empoli—who were promoted to Serie A in 2014—but Juventus bought out the remaining half of the youngster's registration rights from the Florentine outfit earlier this year.

He is contracted to Juve until 2019, and Arsenal may struggle to prise him away from the Serie A champions as he is likely being earmarked as a key player for the future, per David Amoyal of Gianluca Di Marzio's website:

While Rugani has yet to turn out for Juventus in Serie A, he played every minute of Empoli's Italian top-flight campaign in 2014-15, scoring three goals, per WhoScored.com.

He is already remarkably experienced for such a young defender, and it is no surprise that Arsenal are interested in signing him up.

The Gunners' current centre-back duo of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny are now both in their 30s, while Gabriel Paulista is the only genuine alternative in central defence.

Rugani could provide added depth and youthful verve to the Arsenal back four, but he may be a tricky target to snap up.

Gunners fans will no doubt be pleased to hear that manager Arsene Wenger is planning to make some moves in January having added no outfield players in the summer transfer window.

One key addition that seemed glaringly obvious was a new top-class striker, and it is now being reported that Arsenal enquired about Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski.

According to MailOnline's Rob Draper, the response from Bayern was a resounding "no." But the Pole could perhaps become available if Bayern boss Pep Guardiola pens a long-term extension to his current deal at the Allianz Arena, as Lewandowski has never quite seen eye to eye with the Spanish manager.

However, there can be no doubt that the former Barca boss was mightily impressed with his 27-year-old striker earlier this week when he came of the bench and scored five rapid-fire goals against Wolfsburg, per BT Sport Football:

Guardiola often prefers to play Thomas Muller up front with Lewandowski on the bench, but the former Borussia Dortmund man is undoubtedly world class.

Even if he is not Guardiola's favourite player, Bayern would be crazy to let him go for anything less than £40-50 million, the type of money Arsenal have been reluctant to pay in the past.