Arsenal are allegedly interested in signing Villarreal’s Bruno Soriano as the media continue to insist that Arsene Wenger wants to sign a defensive midfielder despite all evidence to the contrary.

Having landed Gabriel from the Spanish side in January, claims are now circulating that Wenger could be about to raid them once again, with all the press reports seemingly stemming from one single solitary tweet from a journalist no-one has heard of until this summer – Emanuele Giulianelli – who tweeted:

Arsenal will try to take Bruno Soriano from Villarreal as DM.

— Emanuele Giulianelli (@EmaGiulianelli) August 19, 2015

This has been picked by a number of the big hitters in the football world and run with.

 

To be fair to Guilianelli, just because I hadn’t heard of him before this summer doesn’t mean he isn’t an incredibly reliable chap. As one fan tweeted him,

Got to say, I’d love to mug Emanuele Giulianelli off and call him a liar, but he’s been 90% right on Watford transfers this window.

— Stephen Fletcher (@sfletcherWFC) August 7, 2015

Although all this tells us is that he has some contacts close to Watford.

And no-one can ever hope to be right 100% with the way that transfers developed.

My problem comes in the form of the insistence that Wenger is trying to sign a DM. As we’ve consistently said on here, if he wants one so badly, why hasn’t he closed any deals yet? It’s not as if there is a shortage out there, we’ve been linked with enough to know that’s not the issue.

Wenger likes his midfielders to be interchangeable and that rules out having a solely defensive player. He also likes them to be under 30, and Bruno, at 31, is not. Obviously.

Of course, I could end being proved completely and utterly wrong, but should this window shut without a fabled DM arriving, I think it’s maybe time we gave up this ghost.