Could Arsenal be about to play swapsies with one of their Germans?

A few days ago I commented that I was quite surprised that a lot of Arsenal’s transfer links seemed to make sense. Schneiderlin, Subotic, Dragovic – all of these potential deals sounded like they had an element of truth to them, the stories had context, I could see them happening and that was encouraging.

But clearly I spoke too soon, as yesterday evening the Daily Star linked Arsenal with a swap deal for Leverkusen’s Hakan Calhanoglu with Lukas Podolski going the other way.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I don’t have a problem with the link in itself.

Hakan Calhanoglu is a just under six-foot tall Turkish 21-year-old attacking midfielder who has scored ten goals and provided eight assists in all competitions this season. He has been linked with all of the big clubs and on paper you could see him playing for Arsenal, especially if Santi Cazorla leaves at the end of the season.

 

I don’t even have a problem with Lukas Podolski being linked with a move away from the club. Once a first team player is loaned out, it’s rare that they come back to the first team and make an impact. Whilst Podolski might well have mentioned coming back to Arsenal and being part of the team at the end of the season, the truth is that it’s unlikely.

So from that aspect at least I guess a swap deal could work.

There could be some kinks though.

Calhanoglu has a long-term deal with Leverkusen whilst Podolski’s runs out in a year. There’s also a big age gap so some hefty money on Arsenal’s behalf will also be involved. But in theory, yeah I guess it could work.

But what about the details, what about the context?

Where is the information that makes you think it could actually happen? – especially with the headline ‘); // ]]>Arsenal to offer Lukas Podolski to Leverkusen to lure Hakan Calhanoglu. That headline sounds like it will happen. But there is nothing. No information that covers any of the vital What Where How When Why parts of a news story.

So to say that the article is vague would be an understatement.

Calhangolu could move to Arsenal at the end of the season but it will take a story with a lot more content than this one to convince me that this is something other than a reporter simply creating a dot-to-dot transfer rumour.

Rant over.