I have to think that Arsene Wenger was having a little bit of fun with the football media this week, as he spoke about some recent Arsenal transfer rumours. The Frenchman was being asked about the Jamie Vardy saga after the England international striker opted to stay at Leicester City and sign a contract extension with the current Premier League champions (that still sounds strange).
To give Wenger his due he dealt with the disappointment of this blow to his Arsenal transfer plans very well and not only wished the Leicester forward good luck for the future but actually insisted that the decision to stick with the club that took him from non-league football and gave him the chance to make the most of his talent was worthy of great respect in this modern money driven era of the beautiful game.
But as reported by Sky Sports, the Frenchman then went on to talk about Vardy’s team mate the French international midfielder N’Golo Kante and his words were surely intended to get the rumour mill spinning a bit faster.
Wenger said, “It is very difficult to talk about that at the moment. Kante is on the list of many clubs. It is an area where we have many players.
“We will see what happens in the next two or three weeks. It looks like Leicester have bought a player from Nice [Nampalys Mendy] with similar qualities to Kante, so whether they envisage to lose him or not I don’t know.
“If you ask 100 people in the street if they want Kante to play [for France] you will get 100 saying yes. He has done the job in one or two games and I am not surprised.
“I said two months ago this boy will play the whole European Championship. We know him well from Leicester now and I am not surprised that he is starting. He has been one of the revelations of the French team.”
So a bit of rumour mongering from the boss there has got people asking whether it will be Arsenal who try to take Kante from Leicester and one of our former midfield stars Ray Parlour has spoken about it being the perfect move for us. I am siorry Gooners but I just don’t see it happening myself.
Have we not already signed a central midfielder in Granit Xhaka? And with Francis Coquelin, Mohamed Elneny, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Santi cazorla in the squad, how many central midfielders do the Gunners need? For me the only way Wenger would go for Kante was if he were to sell at least one of the afore mentioned players but how likely is that?
Bob.