Arsenal transfer rumours: Miralem Pjanic loan from Barcelona

While there are rumours and there is speculation, there is also complete and utter nonsense. Already this window Arsenal have been dished up some spectacular servings of hypothetical garbage but none quite take the biscuit like the latest on Miralem Pjanic.

As outlined, Barcelona are in a mess. A catastrophic one. They make Arsenal look like well run club.

Needing to trim the wage bill by a cool £170m, they have to sell and midfielders are among their long list of players they could offload to fund another insane contract to Lionel Messi – and legally register their new signings. Fortunately for them, Arsenal are in the hunt for some of those central options.

Even with some of the most questionable sources around, there is usually never smoke without fire. Some seemingly nonsense stories from Italy have ended up having legs, while relatively unknown journalists from Spain and England have provided tidbits of information that turned out to be legitimate.

Arsenal negotiating with Barcelona over Miralem Pjanic loan deal with wages covered to solve midfield problem this summer transfer window

What Sport (via Sport Witness) report, however, can be dispelled forever.

A deal that was made purely to try and balance the books, Barcelona ‘swapped’ Arthur for Pjanic last summer, a player off the back of a dreadful season with Juventus, who made only six La Liga starts last term. Barça have tried to release the Bosnian of his contract but he is, rightly, refusing so.

Due to wanting to free the wage bill, La Blaugrana are eyeing loan moves for the 31-year-old where the buying party will cover his wages. So far, Tottenham have been linked with doing so.

But now the Spanish outlet throw Arsenal into the mix and state they are ‘already negotiating’ over a loan deal, one that will happily take so long as there is no loan fee and they need only cover his wages.

How much he earns depends on where you take your information but he’d be sat behind only Thomas Partey and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He’s about their third highest earner. At Barcelona.

On top of that he’s 31, has had a very poor 24 months and will need to acclimatise to the Premier League. Yet even with those there is still space for Arsenal justify bringing him in, regardless of this being the most blatant agent tactics imaginable to source his client a club.

Where there isn’t likelihood with the whole idea of a rebuild. It finally appears as if Stop-Gap FC will be a thing of the past based on signings like Nuno Tavares and the desire for a young, homegrown backup goalkeeper. Pjanic completely upsets that balance.

The whole thing screams Pjanic buying. And utter rubbish, of course.