With a growing injury list greatly reducing the Arsenal squad options available to the manager and with a crucial and busy run of fixtures just around the corner, Arsene Wenger could find himself with a lot of work to do when the transfer window kicks off next month.
Even assuming that no more Arsenal players pick up an injury in the next four weeks (and how likely is that Gooners?) then the Frenchman will be under pressure to sign at least one more forward player, a defensive midfielder and perhaps a central defender as well.
So I was quite surprised to see that one of the latest Arsenal transfer rumours, reported by Metro among others after news from Spain, had us heavily linked with the Real Madrid and Spain star Isco and a £35 million bid for him.
The 23-year old is a typical sort of Wenger signing, with great skill and attacking flair, and if this was coming up to the summer window then I would definitely be more inclined to believe it. But a tricky attacking midfielder is surely pretty low down on our list of priority transfer targets at the moment.
Plus the theory behind the rumour, that Isco is unhappy with his lack of playing time under Rafa Benitez just does not add up. He has started 16 of Real Madrid’s 23 games this season and come on as a sub in four more. So is this just lazy journalism from the Arsenal rumour mill?