Wednesday morning transfer gossip update.
Not a great deal to get our teeth into today, to be honest, but what we do have is certainly a mixed bunch including one piece of nonsense.
Let’s start with the nonsense,
The Mirror is claiming that we are keen to offload Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil in order to reduce our wage bill. It is all ridiculous, full of inaccurate reporting and basically just guesswork.
This one though is interesting, the Daily Star is reporting that Yannick Carrasco, a previous transfer target of ours, says he would “love” to return to Europe from China, where he plays for Dalian Yifang. It will be interesting if we have another go at signing the 25-year-old Belgium winger.
Another one of our reported targets, Charlton midfielder Joe Aribo, is apparently ready to sign a new deal with his club, well, according to his manager Lee Bowyer and the Metro. Let’s see if that remains the case in the event we do table an offer for the 22-year-old.
Finally, Juventus has joined us in showing an interest in signing 23-year-old Benfica left-back Alejandro Grimaldo, according to Calcio Mercato. Grimaldo is highly sought after and is viewed as a potential long term replacement for Nacho Monreal.
There is an element of deja vu with some of these I must admit but there is also a pattern developing that will follow us right into the summer, especially with Ozil and our supposed wage bill problems but there are also some quality stars being mentioned and already I am getting excited at the prospect of some of these players joining us in the summer.