Yes, OK, Olivier Giroud may end up winning a European Championship medal with France after showcasing the best and worst of his repertoire at Euro 2016, creaking around doing decent things, almost very good things and definitely very bad things, stroking his beard and pulling pained expressions in a one-man variety act. But Arsène Wenger knows. He knows Arsenal have to sign another striker. One who can run fast and score goals. He’s closing in on signing one too. A speedy forward who was deemed not as good as Giroud by the France manager Didier Deschamps. In fact, not even as good as the Tigres tank, André-Pierre Gignac. Step forward Alexandre Lacazette, the Lyon forward who battled back from injury to score 11 goals in 10 games at the end of the Ligue 1 season only to be greeted by a Gallic shrug.
Lyon have turned their nose up at the £35m wafted in front of them by Arsenal. They want £42m for the 25-year-old. That’s serious cash. Probably way too serious for Arsène, who will go off and sign a zippy left-back instead. Djibril Sidibé will do from Lille. Julian Draxler is still on Wenger’s radar too. But we all know that the Wolfsburg creator’s £43m pricetag means he’ll just stay on the radar, blipping away in Germany, miles from north London. Damn you Premier League TV money!
West Ham have done all right out of signing 29-year-olds recently. Haven’t they Dimitri? So Slaven Bilic has shoved £26m down a tube and sent if on towards Milan in the hope that they’ll part with Carlos Bacca. The Colombian pretty much guarantees goals. And with Bilic telling him earnestly, almost on the verge of tears, how much he believes in him in that croaky voice of his, you expect that is something that won’t stop at the Olympic Stadium. Whether he joins or not, one Hammer who will be knocking on the exit door, is Diafra Sakho. Sam Allardyce may rescue him with an £11m bid plus bus fare to Sunderland.
If there’s a player pulling up trees in the Eredivisie you just know Ronald Koeman has got his beady eye on them. The latest is the £14m-rated France Under-21 striker Sébastien Haller. The powerful 6ft 2in forward has scored 35 goals in 57 games for Utrecht and Koeman is sizing him up for the Romelu Lukaku-shaped hole that will likely appear in the Everton frontline when someone finally pulls their finger out and signs the big Belgian. Perhaps even Arsenal. Oh, what’s that? Everton want £75m? Perhaps even PSG.
Derby County fancy a grey-haired experienced pest in midfield. So they may be tempted to hire free-agent Leon Osman for the role.
Fresh from snaffling Victor Valdés on a free transfer, Middlesbrough want a big, strapping defender in front of the 34-year-old in case, well, you know, he’s actually not that good at being a goalkeeper anymore. They plan to send £8m the way of Borussia Dortmund for the Serbia international Neven Subotic and the Bundesliga runners-up spared the 27-year old from doing squat-thrusts on Thursday in order to hurry him on his way. “Subotic was released from training, to lead negotiations with a potential new club,” said a Dortmund tweet. Boro will have competition from Stoke, however, with Mark Hughes deciding that having concentrated solely on putting go-faster stripes on his Stoke-mobile for the past two seasons, it’s high time he sorted the back bumper out.
And Mahmoud Dahoud has played down talk of a move to Liverpool from Borussia Mönchengladbach. In fact, he’s pretty much given Jürgen Klopp a list of all the reasons why he shouldn’t sign him. “Who says I should leave Gladbach? I still have room for improvement. My finishing has to improve, I have to get stronger in the air and I can still improve physically to get stronger on the pitch.” If Liverpool want that kind of player they may as well just keep Jordon Ibe and let Bournemouth keep their £15m.
