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Arsenal have swooped in to sign another of Barcelona’s talented youngsters.

The Gunners have a long history of prizing young talent away from the Catalan giants, including the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Hector Bellerin and Jon Toral.

And now they added another name to that list, with the capture of Joel Lopez.

The 16-year-old left-back has made it known to Barcelona that he will not be signing a contract and that he will be moving to north London, according to reports from Spain.

Dario Sport claim that Barcelona did all they good to tempt Lopez to stay, but the defender was swayed by the ‘very attractive sports project’ on offer in England.

As the 16-year-old does not have a professional contract with the La Liga champions, Arsenal will only have to pay them a compensation fee.

The report in Dario Sport states that Arsenal have been on the trail of Lopez for months, but that the interest increased following Raul Sanllehi’s switch to the Gunners.

The club’s new head of football relations officially took up his post in north London in February having left Barcelona, where he had been working as director of football.

Meanwhile, Arsenal have confirmed the appointment of Marcel Lucassen as head of coach and player development at the club's academy.

News of this came via the club's official website and the Dutchman will join from Dubai side Al Nasr, where he's spent the last three years.

Prior to Lucassen's time in the United Arab Emirates, he held positions with the German FA, where he had responsibility for the individual technical and tactical development of the German national youth teams, and 1899 TSG Hoffenheim, where he was assistant coach.

Furthermore, at the German FA he was one of the key people who developed and improved the national team's playing style.

It's understood that the 48-year-old's main responsibilities will be to look after the development of both the coaches and players from Arsenal's sides, from U9s to U23s.

Before being confirmed in this new role, Lucassen outlined his plans for the north London outfit - and supporters will be quite impressed.

"What I'm going to do at AFC is to further develop the football philosophy, as I did earlier with Al Nasr and the German Football Association," he told the Dutch publication Limburger.

"And it was time to start working closer to home so that I could have my family in Blitterswijck."

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