Wayne Rooney linked with shock move to Arsenal this summer

If you’re unfamiliar with the English media, you should know that a lot of the stories written in it at this time of year are 100% made up.

In recent weeks, the stories surrounding Arsenal have been strangely positive for this time of year. In recent years they have all been about players such as Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Robin Van Persie and Alex Song all wanting to leave the club. This year there isn’t so much of that, the talk is mainly surrounding players coming into the club that will hopefully help improve the squad.

In recent weeks the Gunners have been linked with big names in the transfer market including Fiorentina’s Stevan Jovetic and even former captain Cesc Fabregas but the biggest name to be linked out of all of them is Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney.

Rooney is seemingly unhappy at Manchester United again having handed in a transfer request at the end of the season. Despite this, United appear confident that he will stay and the club certainly sound as though they want to keep hold of one of their best players.

Arsenal would have to break their wage structure to get hold of Rooney as well as smash their transfer record too. Rooney is reportedly on £250k a week at United and Arsenal’s highest earners are Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski, who earn around £100k a week. So a significant wage rise is needed for this deal to stand any chance of happening.

The media are suggesting that money from sponsorship deals from Emirates and Puma are what will allow Arsenal to go out and spend big in the summer, something they haven’t been able to do since they moved to their new stadium in 2006. Add to this that they will clear out unwanted players this summer due to contract expirations and trying to sell other unneeded players, Arsenal could

Arsenal qualifying for the Champions League last weekend will be able to attract the top players to the club this summer, Wayne Rooney certainly wouldn’t want to join a club playing in the Europa League. Of course there will be plenty of interest in Rooney, with moneybags PSG and Chelsea amongst the interested teams.

Personally I don’t see Rooney going abroad. He’s either going to have to stay in Manchester or move. If he really doesn’t want to be there, there’s no point in keeping a player on £250k a week just to rot in the reserves.

In honesty, I think they’ll either talk him round or if not, they could sell him to Chelsea (more money) and you could see someone like Fernando Torres or Demba Ba leave Stamford Bridge if that happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a player of his ability in an Arsenal shirt and it would be a massive statement of intent from the club. If it happened, I would definitely be on board with it, even though Rooney does have obvious problems. For example, he’s asked to leave United more than once already and he’s also got a temper on him, you can’t rely on him to keep his cool. But he would be the best player at the club by a country mile, nobody could deny that. It would be the kind of signing that turned Arsenal back into genuine title contenders and in the running from trophies too.

Plus imagine the rivalry between United and Arsenal being back again. The Rooney vs Van Persie rivalry. Sky would be licking their lips at having that fixture back to it’s best. It would be great to see, even if you were a neutral. Quite frankly, United have dominated the rivalry since about 2006. Maybe a change of manager at United and Rooney coming to Arsenal would change that.

So to sum this up – Would I want Wayne Rooney at Arsenal? – yes. Will Arsenal get him? – Probably not.

Wayne Rooney to Arsenal?. I doubt there’d be any complaints from the Arsenal fans if a deal actually happened.