Fulham have had an offer for Nwanwko Kanu turned down by Arsenal, whose £10m valuation could scupper Jean Tigana's hopes of signing the Nigerian.
Fulham are understood to have offered about £7m for Kanu, who is available in the wake of Francis Jeffers' arrival at Highbury. With five strikers at his disposal, Arsène Wenger is willing to offload one.
However Arsenal seem determined to hold out for more than double the £4.5m they paid Internazionale for Kanu in February 1999, and Tigana is unlikely to agree to pay that for the 25-year-old.
The Fulham manager has all but given up hope of signing the forward before his side's opening Premiership match at Manchester United on Sunday and will pursue other targets, though a compromise with Arsenal remains possible.
Tigana has suffered a barren close season in terms of strikers, having failed in his efforts to sign Jan Koller from Anderlecht and Frédéric Kanouté from West Ham since winning promotion.
If an agreement is reached with Arsenal, the Frenchman hopes the prospect of regular Premiership action will convince Kanu to join his former Ajax team-mate Edwin van der Sar at Craven Cottage.
Kanu became frustrated last season by the amount of time he spent on the bench as Wenger rotated his forwards. He started only 13 Premiership matches, scoring three times.
However Kanu said last week he was "happy" at Arsenal and intended to "fight" for his place, and his agent Frank Sedoc insisted yesterday: "There is no chance of Kanu moving before the start of the season."
Sedoc admitted, though, that a transfer could be necessary if Kanu is not playing regularly. "We have to be ready for Japan next summer, that is very, very important," he said, referring to the World Cup. "It's a big season for Kanu and he needs to be playing."
Tigana is willing to give the 6ft 5in forward that chance straight away. He sees in Kanu the skill and experience to complement his existing strikers, Louis Saha, Barry Hayles and Luis Boa Morte. That trio were hugely successful in the First Division but have little top-flight experience and Boa Morte is suspended for the first three matches of the season.
Source guardianunlimited.co.uk