Arsenal: Wilfried Zaha obsession nothing short of madness

Arsenal need help on the wings, no one is doubting that, and Wilfried Zah is a great fix, but £80m is a certifiable request. Get that nonsense out of here.

I love where the Arsenal transfer team’s collective head is at thus far into the summer. With the Europa League final still to be played, they are going hard in the paint after transfer targets big and small, and in the wake of not having much money to spend, they are getting creative.

They are digging into places that aren’t usually hotbeds of transfer activity – The Primera División in Argentina, Ligue 2, China – and trying to find budget signings that still fit the billing for what is really necessary.

And in the case of the big names, they are exploring potential swap deals. I had never seen a good swap deal until we exchanged Alexis Sanchez for Henrikh Mkhitaryan, but ever since, I love the idea, and want to see it happen again.

That said, I don’t want to see the Gunners dump players on Crystal Palace only to get Wilfried Zaha to a manageable fee.

That’s dumb.

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As it stands, it sounds like we are willing to drop Calum Chambers, Reiss Nelson and Carl Jenkinson in addition to £40m in case, to sign Palace’s most valuable commodity.

I mean, I love Zaha, but I can’t be the only one who thinks this is crazy.

For starters, Nelson’s value is really hard to ascertain at this point because we haven’t given him a chance. He’s only just had his first full-length season at a top level club at Hoffenheim and we saw great maturity out of him in the process. How stupid would we feel if we drop him and tons more for Zaha and there isn’t much to split the two production wise?

It could happen.

We know that solving the winger problem is going to be expensive, but with Hakim Ziyech and Ismaila Sarr both hovering around the £25m range, wouldn’t it be a much more sensible use of incredibly limited funds to go after that rather than dropping more than we even have all on one player?

You don’t have to answer that question, my incredulous tone should have answered it for you.

Of course we’d love to have Zaha, but Palace are making it impossible to even think about it, so it’s time to drop the obsession with him. He isn’t the only solution.