Arsenal consider surprising Barcelona swap transfer

Arsenal remain uncertain of their European future this season and that will directly impact what they can achieve in the upcoming summer transfer market.

However, if you thought that was going to slow down the endless waves of speculation, you’d be wrong.

Having lost to Brighton to leave their Champions League ambitions hanging by a thread, supporters have gone into rumour overdrive as hopes of dining at the market’s elite table have required a rethink.

Midfielders like Ruben Neves have still been thrust back into the spotlight following previous links to the club, although the latest to emerge centres around potential outgoings from north London.

Arsenal linked with surprising and nonsensical Barcelona swap transfer as Xavi wants Gabriel Magalhaes while Arteta eyes Memphis Depay arrival

Sport have been claiming that Gabriel Magalhaes is high on Barcelona’s summer wishlist, with Xavi currently boasting a number of central defenders he’s keen to move on from the club. Samuel Umtiti and Clément Lenglet are the current left-footed options but are both set to depart, and the Gunners’ 2020 signing is being sounded out as a replacement.

In order to sweeten the deal it’s claimed that La Blaugrana are willing to offer one of goalkeeper Neto, midfielder Riqui Puig or forward Memphis Depay as makeweights, and that discussions have been ongoing for some time.

They appear to have come a conclusion on who it is that they want from the list, with a new report from the same outlet stating that Depay is ‘the one Arsenal like most’.

On the one hand, Depay sort of fits the transfer strategy Arsenal have had success with. What they did with Martin Odegaard was sign someone who was billed as one of the finest talents around, but who just hadn’t quite made it at the biggest clubs.

They see these level of talents and offer them another crack of the whip. Depay suits that model slightly, having found game time hard to come by in La Liga despite being one of Ligue 1’s main stars. But this is where logic pulls this, or any swap with Barcelona over Gabriel, apart.

Purely from the point of optics, imagine the outrage if Arsenal were to pay their former captain to leave the club, only to sign the player he’s overtaken from the lineup in exchange for one of the club’s most promising young players? That entire sequence of events is remarkable to consider.

Moving on, Depay is 28 years old and not of the age profile the club are after, his previous stint in the Premier League with Manchester United failed to capture the imagination, and, perhaps most alarming of all, is that Arsenal would even be considering moving Gabriel on in the first place.

This is his second season with the club and he’s comfortably been one of the most improved players in the whole squad. Together with Benjamin White he’s forming an increasingly solid partnership, with the last two matches where he’s been way off his best not in any way representative of his whole season.

Unless there is another £50m on top of Depay and the Dutchman suddenly turns into a sprightly 23-year-old who can then be moved on instantly and sold for a humongous profit, this isn’t going to happen. Mikel Arteta has shown unwavering trust in Gabriel and he won’t abandon that for a 28-year-old Depay.

Hopefully they’re still open for separate discussion on Frenkie de Jong…