Gabriel Paulista Transfer rated 50-50 by Arsene Wenger

Arsene Wenger has today rated Arsenals move for Villareal’s defender Gabriel Paulista as ’50-50′, citing that Arsenal will always be willing to pay the money they feel a player is worth; perhaps pointing to big money transfers in recent years which have bucked the trend of Arsenal’s scrimping past.

The Guardian have reported Wenger talking avout the Brazilian defender:

"“The talks are progressing quite well. Can we find an agreement or not? I don’t know. We are slowly progressing and there’s a chance. It’s 50/50,” he said on Thursday. “We are ready to pay the price for a player if he is good enough. If the price is right, we will pay.”Wenger said the club would battle to get Paulista a work permit should the deal go through rather than wait until the summer when changes to the system would make getting a visa easier.“First of all, I don’t understand the logic of this rule. Secondly if a player we want needs a work permit we’ll defend it [the application] now. We don’t necessarily want to do it in the summer. We are short now so no mater what the rules are, we have to do it now.”Asked if Paulista could represent the end of his January business, should he arrive, Wenger said this was not necessarily the case."

Wenger does seem to be carrying on here as though everything between the clubs is sorted, because it is extremely rare for him to talk about a player in such certain terms before a deal is in place. And with only the work permit likely to be in the way of a move it looks as though Arsenal could be making a savvy purchase in the January transfer window,  and at a great time in the season.

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Wenger has been insistent that the Premier League title chase is not over, and with the Gunners still firing in the Champions League making a signing like Paulista will allow the team to compete on multiple fronts at the top level.

Paulista also has years ahead of him at the top of the game regarding his improvement and he’s committed to pushing himself to the top of his game. For me, if it wasn’t based purely on representation and big money signings, he would be very close to displacing David Luiz from the Brazil squad because…you know…he can actually defend…

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