Thanks to mistranslated comments from the club’s chairman Erick Thohir, the Mesut Özil to Inter rumours have returned with a bang, but, rest assured Arsenal fans, it won’t be all that easy for the Serie A side to get him.
Let’s start with what the Indonesian millionaire said.
Wary of the winter window following the underwhelming January transfers that were Xherdan Shaqiri and Lukas Podolski for Inter, it’s worth pointing out Özil would be a summer signing.
Even if he doesn’t renew his contract between now and the winter transfer window, there is little chance of Arsenal loaning the German playmaker to Inter, or selling him midway through the season to a club who can’t even bring in a new centre-back despite only have three at their disposal.
Furthermore, the quotes from the chairman have been wildly misconstrued, with Thohir actually stating the rumours of him arriving in January were ‘gossip’, rather than saying the club were definitely looking at Özil.
What’s especially staggering is that the twisted quotes came from Calciomercato, who actually link to the “gossip” article in their own.
It’s almost as if they want us to pick up on it.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the real problem here, which has already been touched upon: finances.
Corriere dello Sport are the ones briefly delving into this wishful deal, and they make it very clear the idea would be for the Arsenal midfielder to arrive on a free for the 2018/19 season, having already enquired about his availability, but that wages would be an issue.
Actually, that’s being generous: they describe Özil salary as “unreachable/inaccessible/unattainable”.
You get the idea.
Having invested heavily during the summer transfer window and just about escaped FFP sanctions, the Serie A outfit would have to shed a lot of weight to be able to afford Özil in the summer, even if he were to arrive on a free.
