According to a number of reports on Thursday, Arsenal are getting ready to offer €35m plus Olivier Giroud to sign Mauro ICardi from Inter Milan.

Say it with me – NO THEY’RE NOT!

I’m not overly sure why stories that involve player swaps are even given the time of day when it comes to coverage because they never happen. Not only does this story rely on a player swap to work, it also tells us secret Arsenal transfer plans and what the club’s intention is meaning we can automatically rule it out as utter hogwash.

Icardi will not be leaving Inter, he certainly will not be leaving Inter for Arsenal with Giroud, Arsenal’s only fit senior striker, going the other way.

As usual, all these reports stem from a single solitary story, spreading like the plague and making it seem like it has some substance to it because it’s repeated by papers which are meant to have journalists who know better.

You know, journalists at papers like the Sun, who can’t even tell a Danish website from a former Ajax captain:

sunNapoli, a much more likely destination for the Argentine, are said to be still ‘pressing’ to get a deal done but Inter are flat-out refusing to sell.

The player could even be about to renew his contract with Inter, earning a massive payrise  to €5m a year, which is what we’ve claimed this transfer ‘rumour’ has been about all along.