Arsenal have reportedly convinced Thomas Lemar to leave Monaco for the sunny side of north London ahead of massive interest from Tottenham.

The 21-year-old winger who fired himself into the imagination of football fans across Europe with his nine goals and 11 assists for Monaco last season in the league, has been stalling on a new deal with the French side.

A further five assists and two goals in their Champions League run of 12 games saw him end the season with even more impressive stats of 17 assists and 14 goals in 55 games. Playing a total of 4,209 minutes, that’s a goal involvement of one every 135 minutes.

The reporter in question, Amy Christophers, an FA qualified referee and former page 3 girl, hasn’t made a name for herself breaking transfer stories so it’s hard to know where this information is coming from and how reliable it is.

Is she just building on rumours that were already out there that claimed Arsenal’s interest had turned Lemar’s head? Is she taking a punt in the hopes of nailing a great guess? Or does she have actual hard information?

My gut tells me it’s not the latter, despite Arsenal’s interest in the player being real.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t right but there is no track record here to make this rumour anything other than that – a rumour.

A nice rumour, but still….