Just a few days after the majority of Arsenal transfer rumours about the talented attacking midfield star Henrikh Mkhitaryan were leaning towards Arsenal leading the race to sign him, the Gunners have suffered a double blow to the chances of securing this particular transfer.
First of all we had a report by Squawka.com in which his agent Mino Raiola talked up his clients wish to sign for our Premier League rivals Manchester United without mentioning Arsenal at all, although this could conceivably be because it was the Old Trafford club that was trying to sign him rather than Arsene Wenger.
The agent said, “Man Utd is a unique opportunity, Micki wants to go there.”
Okay so that is a bad enough bit of transfer news for Arsenal fans to digest, but even worse was to come in the shape of another Squawka.com report. This one revealed that the CEO of Mkhitaryan’s current club Borussia Dortmund stated that their player would not be going anywhere during the summer transfer window, even though Hans-Joachim Watzke also admitted that the 27-year old star would not be signing an extension to his current contract which is due to run out next summer.
He said, “We’ve been negotiating a new deal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan for four months. We now know he won’t sign an extension. There was never a promise that he can leave us prematurely.
“We have intensely discussed the question of an early transfer in all club bodies and came to the conclusion that Mkhitaryan will stay in Dortmund next season.”
The question now for Arsenal fans is, if we are not going to sign Mkhitaryan, then just who is on the transfer wish list?