by Lewis Ambrose
Reports in England on Monday have linked Arsenal with maverick striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, who could leave Paris Saint-Germain this summer. Hello, silly season.
The French champions could even listen to offers of around £11M for the centre-forward, but rumours that Arsenal are interested seem wide of the mark.
Sport Witness has looked through the original source cited in Daily Star and The Daily Express and found not one mention of Arsenal.
The original rumour simply seems to come from Tuttomercatoweb who say that Ibrahimović could be available for £11M but don’t mention Arsenal or any alleged interest once.
Winner
Ibrahimović comes with a great reputation as a winner, a goalscorer, and a creator.
It is however, impossible to see Arsène Wenger spending that amount of money (not to mention the huge wage that the Swede would demand) for a man who will be 34 years old in October.
No matter how much he has won this deal wouldn’t be worth it to Arsenal, who already have Olivier Giroud, Danny Welbeck, Theo Walcott, and Alexis Sánchez.
Trials
The Swedish captain wasclose to a deal to join Arsenal more than a decade ago, at which point Wenger asked him to play in a trial.
“Zlatan doesn’t do trials,” was the alleged infamous reply.
I highly doubt that sort of attitude would have sat well with Wenger anyway.
This squad has great harmony, and the manager won’t risk that for an expensive guy with one or two years left at the top.
There’s no substance to these rumours – everyone is just a bit bored and lost for ideas.
A deal to bring Zlatan to Arsenal wouldn’t make any sense.