Roll up, roll up, silly season is well and truly back here in the Football Transfer Tavern with the deals and speculation really starting to hot up as we enter mid-June.
Thus far this summer, the futures of Memphis Depay, James Milner, Danny Ings and Sami Khedira have all been wrapped up and the punters can’t wait to see who’ll be next with the daily papers going into overdrive with transfer speculation.
What the summer transfer window also brings with it alongside agitated Arsenal fans, countless yellow bar gasps on Sky Sports News and cameo appearances from Harry Redknapp (even though he’s not a manager anymore!) is ridiculous rumours.
We’re talking about rumours so crazy that you can imagine the mainstream press throwing a load of players names into one hat and teams into another and then drawing from either!
One punter pipes up and claims ‘isn’t this what they do already?’ and this jibe is met by a round of applause by the rest of the drinkers by the bar.
Despite this scepticism, silly season is here until August at least and keeping along this theme, we have identified five of the most ridiculous Arsenal transfer rumours we’ve heard so far.
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Click on Jack Wilshere below to reveal the 5 most ridiculous Arsenal transfer rumours heard so far this summer.
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Zlatan Ibrahimovic
One of the most recent transfer rumours we’ve heard by the bar also fits into the ‘most ridiculous’ category to boot and it concerns the walking ego himself that is Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
A couple of days ago, The Independent along with every other media outlet claimed Ibrahimovic could be an £11 million target for Arsenal with the outspoken Swedish international having grown fed up at Paris Saint-Germain.
Before this news was shot down immediately by Ibrahimovic’s agent, Gooners everywhere were incredibly sceptical that Arsene Wenger would ever bring such a forthright personality into a tight-knit squad while disrupting all of the team spirit that has contributed towards two successive FA Cup triumphs.
While they admitted Ibra undoubtedly would make up his transfer fee in shirt sales, not to mention the fact that he is still a very capable forward at 33-years-old, this one was simply never going to work out given the player’s personality.
Once upon a time, Ibrahimovic told Arsenal he doesn’t do auditions and it appears he doesn’t do false transfer speculation either!
Hugo Lloris
The good news for Arsenal is that the Petr Cech transfer speculation is intensifying by the day with the Chelsea goalkeeper seemingly destined to become a Gunner in the coming month or so.
Nevertheless, this didn’t stop The Mirror from referencing L’Equipe in January while claiming Arsenal could be planning a sensational raid on their North London rivals Tottenham to bring Lloris to Emirates Stadium to usurp the inconsistent Wojciech Szczesny.
Since then, Manchester United have been credited with more of a firm interest in the French international but to link Lloris with a Sol Campbell-type switch was simply scandalous in every sense.
One thing is for sure; Arsenal fans would love to steal the world class Lloris from their fierce neighbours while taunting them afterwards but Daniel Levy was never ever going to entertain that idea surely?
If he did make the move, Lloris may want to install some blacked out windows on his car in North London if he hadn’t already!
Bafetimbi Gomis
If every player that performed well against you was then linked with a transfer to that club, surely the realm of transfer speculation would turn into more of an absolute farce than some already think it is!
That was exactly the case when the Daily Star linked Swansea City’s Bafetimbi Gomis with a transfer to Arsenal back in the January transfer window to give Arsene Wenger a much needed alternative option to Olivier Giroud.
The reports claimed the Frenchman was house hunting in London at the time and unsurprisingly enough, this came after the player downed the Gunners in a 2-1 victory for the Swans over Arsenal back in November 2014.
Gomis of course went on to score again against the Gunners at Emirates Stadium in the ultimate smash and grab job later in the season but the consensus amongst Gooners is that he is nowhere near the standard of striker Arsene Wenger needs to sign in order to win the Premier League.
Anyway, Gomis has already appeared in Swansea City’s completely over-the-top new #CopperStripe kit launch to promote their new 2015/16 season jersey (video below) so he couldn’t possibly be leaving the Liberty Stadium any time soon, could he?
Jonny Evans
Arsenal fans thought previous transfer links with Tom Cleverley and Chris Smalling were bad enough but Metro really outdid themselves when they linked the Gunners with a summer swoop for Manchester United’s Jonny Evans back in April.
Evans is one of those players who is never too far away from making yet another calamitous defensive decision and our resident United fans will be only too quick to remind everybody how error-prone their Northern Ireland international is.
They joke that they’d love Arsenal to take Evans off of their hands in what would be a Mikael Silvestre-type signing for Arsenal – simply strange!
The reports claimed that if United managed to land Mats Hummels this summer then Evans would be placed in the shop window with Arsenal seemingly interested.
With Gabriel Paulista set to step up next season and Per Mertesacker still capable of doing a job, we think the prospect of Evans in an Arsenal shirt is simply laughable!
Vlad Chiriches
Another rumour to fit the ridiculous category was Vlad Chiriches to Arsenal back before the opening of the January transfer window.
Back then, Arsene Wenger had experienced something of an injury crisis earlier in the season which meant he had to deploy Nacho Monreal at centre half among other solutions with Tottenham’s Chiriches meant to be the answer to the Frenchman’s prayers.
Arsenal of course went on to sign Gabriel Paulista from Villarreal but to link the Gunners with a Tottenham defender and a below-par one at that was simply wrong.
Even our resident Tottenham fans aren’t convinced over the abilities of Romanian international Chiriches so what Arsenal would see in him, we’ll never know!
Tabloid tosh, this time on behalf of The Express.
