One of my colleague’s delivered a story the other day about the possibility of Arsenal selling Marouane Chamakh this Summer, and it now appears that we may know who is being lined up as his replacement should that sale go ahead.
Our friends at Footylatest are reporting that Arsene Wenger has sent scouts to Germany, to watch Bundesliga scoring sensation Papiss Cisse, who has also been linked with Liverpool.
Cisse was born in Senegal, but like many young Senegalese footballers the early part of his career was spent in France, where he ultimately signed for Metz. He played for a series of different clubs on loan in both Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, but on the whole he had a pretty impressive scoring record in France managing 51 goals in 140 games. On the back of this success he moved to the Bundesliga where he plays for Freiburg, and his form has been impressive.
Now in his second season he has having a good spell, he has notched up 22 goals in 29 games this term, and has fired the small German club up the league and he has got them challenging for Europa League qualification.
It has been revealed by his club that they have had offers for the 6′ striker, Footylatest have quotes from sporting director Dirk Dufner:
“Several clubs in the Bundesliga and from abroad, including the Premier League, have approached us officially, but have not decided anything yet….We need to value many things and do it privately at the end of the season.”.
Considering Freiburg only spent £1.5million on the striker they could be looking at a nice profit should a deal be done this Summer. Papiss does look a decent prospect, but he would clearly need the right service, as Manchester City are finding with Edin Dzeko, having a top Bundesliga goal scorer is only useful if you can deliver the correct service and that will definitely be true of the Senegalese striker.
Arsenal need an out an out goal scorer, and he could definitely provide that with time and the right service. I suppose much of this relies on the future of Bendtner and Chamakh. As we all know the Arsenal hierarchy don’t like spending too much money on experienced players, and at this stage there is no indication what sort of fee it would take to secure the striker, but I think it would probably be a figure that the Gunners could afford.
Whether they would face competition from Kenny Dalglish and Liverpool seems uncertain at this point, now that they have Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez, it appears that interest from them may have died down. They don’t have much depth however, and he would surely be a better bet coming off the bench that the much maligned David N’Gog.
It is definitely something worth watching and the domino effect could make or break this move, if the Gunners do move on Chamakh, a replacement will have to be found and Papiss could definitely do a job, and if Arsenal continue to monitor the player until the end of the season, these rumours will definitely gather pace.
For more of the latest transfer, why not follow me on twitter? @soccercityjoe is the place to do it!
