by Nia Griffiths

Borussia Dortmund are keen to keep ahold of reported Arsenal target, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, despite interest from the Gunners.

The Bundesliga team’s sporting direction, Michael Zorc, has spoken up about the link and the club’s desire to keep the forward, who they heavily rely upon.

Although we’ve been linked with the 26-year-old since the beginning of the window, gossip has only started to hot up in recent weeks that we could actually be bidding for him. According to reports, we’ve already had one bid for £28.7m turned down. However, there’s been no official confirmation of this.

Zorc did his best to shut down rumours recently, saying, “We rely heavily on Aubameyang – that is no secret. I’ve heard a lot about this (a transfer to Arsenal) but I can say very clearly that it is blocked for him. He is simply not for sale.”

Aubameyang only signed for Dortmund two years ago and has since scored 41 goals for the club – 26 of which coming last season. He seems like a top forward but I’m not sure we’d spend such a large sum of money when Arsene Wenger claims he’s happy with the squad we’ve got.

Of course, we know behind the scenes there could be a different story.

The interesting part of Zorc’s quotes are that he doesn’t deny that Arsenal’s interest has been there. Of course, he could just be referring to media speculation, although if contact hadn’t been made at all, surely most would mention this in order to placate the fans?