Philosophy's Arsene Wenger has long since been forced to take the 'can't-beat-'em-join-'em' approach to financial doping, having seen the moral high ground beneath his feet recede to leave the furious, fulminating presenters on Arsenal Fan TV snapping at his heels, baying for blood.
The signings of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil were the biggest examples of Wenger admitting that he had to buy big in the transfer market to compete with the clubs who had picked off his best player.
History is repeating itself, with Alexis Sanchez set to move to Manchester United. Wenger is going to move quickly this time around, with reports claiming that Henrikh Mkhitaryan's move in the opposite direction will soon materialise. The club are also on the verge of completing the signing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Dortmund, which is expected to be completed before the end of the window in spite of a couple of salty comments from Dortmund:
We find it disrespectful to comment on players from other clubs. There's no contact to Arsenal. We assume Wenger has enough to do to care about the performance of his own players.
The significance of their signings are not restricted to what they will add on the pitch: they are symbolic of a much larger change at Arsenal, with the influence of their Chief Executive manager Arsene Wenger receding for the first time. Sven Mislintat was appointed as the club's new head of recruitment in November, and is erstwhile of Dortmund where he was credited with the signings of Robert Lewandowski and Ousmane Dembele.
Elsewhere, Balls are excited to reveal Chelsea's list of January transfer targets. Having reportedly opting against the signing of Andy Carroll as he is crocked, the club are allegedly flirting with the idea of signing Peter Crouch. Should that fail, however, they have a couple of backups:
Exclusive! We've just found Chelsea's transfer target list. pic.twitter.com/SBi9f4xTSx
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) January 18, 2018
Reports from a rival outlet called Sky Sports (yeah, we don't know them either) appear to undermine our sleuthing, however, as they are reporting that Chelsea are instead interested in Edin Dzeko, formerly of Man City and now playing with Roma, who would set them back around £57 million.
They may knock a bit of the price off, however, by offering social media's Michy Batshuayi has part of the deal.
Elsewhere, City, United, Liverpool and Chelsea are all reportedly interested in Nice's Jean-Michael Seri, while Spurs and Manchester United are scrapping it out over Lucas Moura like it's 2012.
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