Draxler Move Looks Dead As Wenger Refuses To Pay £37m Asking Price

With the January transfer window entering it’s final stages clubs are working hard to try and strengthen their squad for the second half of the season, so we’ll keep you up-to-date with all the latest news, gossip and rumours. Today, Gooner Mac gives us the latest on Arsenal move for Julian Draxler.

 

Deadline day is finally here and it seems it’s going to be a busy day for Arsene Wenger as he desperately tries to add to his attacking options, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting his hands on Julian Draxler.

According to various newspaper reports this morning, talks with Schalke remain in deadlock and Wenger is refusing to meet their £37m asking price as he feels it’s too expensive for an unproven 20-year-old.

With the club paying about £5m more for Mesut Ozil – a full international who’s proven himself at the highest level – it’s easy to see why the boss feels he’s not getting value for money if he had to pay £37m for Draxler.

The Telegraph claim that we’ve tried to reduce the up-front fee and structure the deal with various add ons so the final figure could reach £37m if the player reaches certain milestones such as appearances, international caps, etc, but Schalke are holding out for the full £37m now.

With the German deadline at 5pm this evening, it leaves us with little time to find a breakthrough and even though the general consensus is that we may have one more go at trying to thrash out a deal today and things can change very quickly, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that Draxler will be heading to north London.

So the newspapers suggest that Wenger is now searching frantically around Europe to try and find two loan players with Cristian Tello of Barcelona, Miroslav Klose of Lazio and Alvaro Morata of Real Madrid in his sights.

If we can’t land Draxler, then I’d be more than happy if we could bring in Tello and either Morata or Klose. It’s going to be difficult to persuade Barca to let Tello leave but he’d be an excellent replacement for the injured Theo Walcott and would give us the pace and goal-threat from the wing that we’ll miss now Theo’s out.

Klose is now 35 but he’s still a deadly finisher and would give us something different up front, while Morata is a youngster who’ll be eager to impress, so either of those would be good alternatives to Olivier Giroud.

Not long now, let’s see what Arsene can do…..

READ MORE –> Arsenal transfer news

Do you think we’ll sign anyone today? Who? Share your suggestions below.