The Guardian today claim that Roberto Mancini is planning to lure Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to Milan this summer “by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs between the Emirates and San Siro.”

Now, I’ve been writing about transfer guff for a good few years and I still can’t work out what this is supposed to mean.

There is no further information in the piece written by Barry Glendenning to even hint at what it might mean.

Breadcrumbs, as we know, are, metaphorically, a trail to help you follow something. In this case, I assume it’s the path from London to Milan, but I’m fairly sure there are a number of flights Auba can use.

How would breadcrumbs lure him to Italy? And what’s it got to do with Roberto Mancini who is manager of Italy, not either of the Milan sides anyway?

WTF does this even mean?

From the Guardian – pic.twitter.com/nzABR5s1J5

— Daily Cannon (@DailyCannon) March 10, 2020

On Saturday, The Daily Mail reported that Pierre-Emerick’s wage demands are likely to see him sold in the summer.

Mikel Arteta has already said that we won’t know what will happen with Auba until the summer and we know Arsenal’s Champions League fate – will they be being battered by Bayern Munich next season or not?

That is the important question.

The Mail’s Saturday edition claimed Aubameyang wants more than a 30% increase on his £200kpw salary to take him to £300kpw, with his current salary containing a number of bonuses to get it to that figure.

They also claimed that Arsenal are ‘growing increasingly resigned’ to having to sell him in the summer even though just a week or so ago Arteta said he was confident he would stay.

It is worth noting that when stories emerged recently saying that Arsenal were optimistic about talks with Auba that were meant to be taking place, the Gabon striker was quick to point out that people talk about what they don’t know.

There was no mention of breadcrumbs.