Transfer update – more on Willian, Benzema, Higuain, Odemwingie & Lukaku, plus Alvarez

No new rumours for you to get your teeth into – just updates on previous rumours.

Firstly, we’ve been linked again with Shakhtar Donetsk winger Willian. Denilson wanted us to sign him a while back, despite being on his way out of the club, and from what I’ve seen of him he’s a decent player. Apparently he’s only valued at £5 million, while other news outlets report a fee in the region of £15 million. Somewhere in between would probably be about right.

Personally, I’m desperate for us to sign a winger. I think it’s an area in which we could use more depth – Nasri and Arshavin are our only natural wingers in my opinion, as Walcott often struggles. He has good games, but sometimes gets forced out of a game by his full back. I think Willian would be a decent option on the flank, but it depends on a few things. Personally, I can’t see Wenger going for him, but we’ll see.

Jose Mourinho has commented on the Benzema & Higuain rumours. He says they’re both “intransferable”, so it looks like both of those rumours are dead in the water at the moment. I doubt we’ll see that situation change, so right now they’re just pipe dreams.

Further fuel has been added to the “Odemwingie to Arsenal” fire, this time with a few major news outlets reporting that we’ve bid £4 million for the West Brom striker. This all came from wearethenorthbank’s exclusive about us being interested in Odemwingie, and I doubt there’s much else to it.

According to givemefootball, Arsenal & Chelsea target Romelu Lukaku will join one of the two soon. I can’t see him coming to Arsenal, he has Chelsea written all over him. It’s sad, because I think he’s going to be an absolute beast. In fact, at 6ft5, he already is. He’ll probably end up like Drogba, our nemesis, always scoring against us, which is a shame.

That’s about it for today, although if there’s anything worth reporting later on it might be up. Until then, I have to learn my German script. Auf wiedersehen…

(update: apparently Manchester United were scouting our target Ricky Alvarez last night. Hands off!)

Transfer update – Higuain, Menez, McCarthy

Well I said I wouldn’t do an update unless we signed anyone…

Well, we haven’t. But I woke up early-ish again, and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I trawled the internet for the latest Arsenal rumours, just for you guys.

The first rumour is the one that links us to Gonzalo Higuain of Real Madrid. We’ve been linked with him before, and it didn’t happen. This time, the Daily Mirror claims that he’s available for £15 million, alerting us, Liverpool and Sp*rs. What player that we’re linked with isn’t immediately linked with Sp*rs? They pretty much try and sign every player we do.

Anyway, I can’t see Higuain being available, and certainly not for that price. Although Real do have a history of offloading players for cut-price deals (van der Vaart to name one) they haven’t got an awful lot of strikers. Higuain and Benzema are their two natural strikers, and they play Ronaldo up there a lot too. I think Higuain’s availability will come down to what Real do this summer – they’ve been heavily linked with Aguero, and at one point the deal seemed all but done. There remains a little uncertainty over him joining, but I still think he’s headed to the Bernabeu.

I think Mourinho would be happy with three top class strikers in Aguero, Benzema and Ronaldo, seeing as he only signed Adebayor as cover for injured/out of form players, so if Aguero did end up crossing the Madrid divide, then I think Higuain would be a possibility. He’s a player that Arsene admires, like Benzema (who he called an “interesting” player) and for £15 million I could see him making a move for Higuain. Personally, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’m a big fan of Higuain, and at one point he was one of the top strikers in the world.

Another striker we’re linked with is Jeremy Menez. RMC Radio have reported that Roma are going to offer the French international for our French international. Oh… the one who plays in defence… er, the full back… the one who can’t cross… Gael Clichy. Apparently Menez will be just one player who Vincenzo Montello looks to offload this summer.

To be honest, other than knowing how rubbish he is on FIFA (seriously, don’t sign him in your careers) I don’t know an awful lot about how good this lad is. I’ll have to ask around for a little more information about him, but until then I can’t comment on the rumour myself.

The final rumour is that of Wigan midfielder James McCarthy. Again, it’s the Mirror that are linking him with us. They say that the chairman Dave Whelan has admitted they’ll have to sell the player if he wants to leave, and that Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal are interested.

I’m fairly sure we were interested in him when he was at Hamilton Academical in Scotland, only for him to opt for first team football at Wigan. That’s fair enough, as he wouldn’t have played much at all at any of the big clubs he was linked with. He still probably wouldn’t play much at Arsenal, but I think he’s a tidy player who would be an excellent squad player. Whether or not he would be happy as such is anybody’s guess.

That’s about it on the transfer front for now – more later probably.