Arsenal: Gareth Bale is just Mesut Ozil five years later

Arsenal are a big club, so no matter what their transfer policy suggests, they will always be linked to stupidly big players as long as the opening is there.

I actually fell for it a couple years back when Arsenal were first linked to Gareth Bale. I thought, ‘why not, we got Mesut Ozil, didn’t we?’ What is Gareth Bale to Mesut Ozil, other than five years later and thus probably five times more expensive?

What made Mesut Ozil so sensible at the time, despite the bigness of the move, was the fact that he was exactly what the Gunners needed. They were desperate for a big name at his exact position, so in he swoops, a record-setting deal that no one ever expected to happen, but lo and behold. he’s been at the Emirates for half a decade now.

In that half decade, the number of wingers on the squad have diminished down to zero, where we currently reside. There is not a single speedy wide attacker on the club, and, like in 2013 when there was no creative mind in the center of the midfield, the desperation is a void that welcomes all comers.

Thus, the Gareth Bale rumors have, like a shark to blood, swarmed in and reintroduced themselves to our collective consciousness.

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It’s ludicrous, this idea that we stand a chance of landing Gareth Bale, especially if you consider that we will have to spend like, £70m to land the main man, Matthijs De Ligt. Because Bale be damned, De Ligt is priority No. 1.

Regardless of that though, the plausibility of this rumor has to come down to if Bale would even want to move to Arsenal, giving up Real Madrid for the Emirates, where he would be stationed opposite his dear old digs at Tottenham.

It’s a dream, really. If we have a summer where we make it to the Champions League and land Bale and De Ligt, then no one will ever complain again for as long as we live. That is dynamite. But is it realistic? Of course not.

But neither was Mesut Ozil.

The Bale rumors are hitting Arsenal in a similar way that the Ozil rumors hit us. It can never happen. It’s too expensive. It isn’t want this club does. It doesn’t fit their policy.

Mesut Ozil happened. And maybe it’s crazy, but I’m not so quick to discount the Bale rumors just because they feel unlikely.