According to a growing number of Arsenal transfer rumours, the summer transfer window looks likely to see a determined effort to sign our England international midfielder Jack Wilshere from at least one Premier League rival Man City. There have been some reports that Jose Mourinho would like him at Chelsea as well, even though Arsene Wenger has suggested that the Arsenal players are no longer for sale to our Premier League rivals.
A report in The Mirror today claims that City are preparing a transfer bid of around £30 million for our talented midfielder and although the manager does have a lot of say, many would say too much, on the running of the club, I think some of the club hierarchy might just have a word in the Frenchman's ear about saying yes to the deal.
We do not have to sell, of course, and the club has done well to sign up our players to long term deals but that means we can command a good price and perhaps someone should point out to Wenger what he could do with that £30m. It would buy at least one of the top class players that Thierry Henry claimed we need, and none of those players was another tricky midfielder.
I know that Wenger likes this sort of player but with Ramsey, Ozil, Cazorla, Chamberlain and Rosicky, selling Jack will not exactly leave him short. Then maybe we should consider the progress of promising young players like Zelalem while you cannot ignore the fact that injury has heavily disrupted yet another season for Jack. Just seven starts in the Premier League and 13 in all competitions suggests to me that we are already doing without him so maybe it is time to accept a good offer and maybe the player himself will agree that his best chance of playing regularly may not be with Arsenal as he cannot get into the side even when fit.
There is a big drawback though and that is the reluctance to strengthen a rival and the fact that us fans have seen it happen too many times already in the last 10 years. But if Wenger was to spend the extra cash and sign a top quality striker, holding midfielder, centre back and keeper, would we really miss Jack that much?