Global football is currently on pause for the most part, but the Premier League will restart again on June 17. Project Restart appears to be a success, with training returned and the UK government giving the official all clear for sporting events to resume.
Until we have football matches again, we still have plenty of transfer talk to cover and analyze. So let’s take a spin through the Arsenal FC rumor mill in cyberspace.
We start with a report from La Replubblica which claims says that Arsenal will rival Napoli in the race to acquire Lille forward Victor Osimhen.
Should they acquire the 21-year-old Nigerian, it would mark the second summer in a row that they acquired a forward from Lille (Nicolas Pepe).
With Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang potentially leaving this summer, and Alexandre Lacazette possibly seeing his future with the club in question before too long, we could see a reshaping of the final third.
Staying in attack, Barcelona (currently on loan at Bayern Munich) winger Philippe Coutinho wants a return to the Premier League, says his agent Kia Joorabchian. The former Liverpool star has been linked to Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Newcastle United, among others.
“He has a desire to come back to the Premier League at some point,” Joorabchian said to Sky Sports.
“It may not happen this year, it may happen this year — we don’t know. We really have not discussed anything for now.”
Bayern have the option of signing Coutinho permanently at the end of the season for €120 million, but it looks like they won’t exercise it.
“It’s up to Bayern Munich whether or not they want to extend the loan,” Joorabchian added.
“It’s purely Bayern’s decision, we have a will to stay, and we will see about next season when we get back to this ‘new normal.’ We’ve had some conversations with Bayern about next season [already].”
The third and final item, in our all attacking players edition of Arsenal transfer talk, concerns Arkadiusz Milik.
The 26-year-old Napoli star, and Polish international, has been linked with a move away for some time. Arsenal are leading the race to sign him, according to La Repubblica. There is more on this at Daily Mail.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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