Arsenal to sign Javier Hernandez and Mauro Icardi?

Posted Thursday, February 04, 2016 by theguardian.com

Oh Arsene. Did you really think you had anyone fooled? The Mill wasn’t going to fall for it, no siree. Hiding behind the Lionel Messi gags and the tributes to John Terry may have bought you a bit of time but the Mill twigged something was up when you badly needed a goal at home to Southampton, turned to the bench and summoned … Francis Coquelin. Arsène you have been exposed again for needing a striker but much like the way that he plays, Javier Hernández to the Emirates is an irritating little rumour that has an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. And so Chicharito, he of 21 goals in 24 matches for Bayer Leverkusen since he was deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford, will arrive in the summer after Arsenal’s third-place finish. Leverkusen are already preparing for life without him, so says their director Jochen A. Rotthaus.

Arsenal are also set to enter to race for Mauro Icardi, the Internazionale forward who had a pretty frank and honest discussion with Roberto Mancini after the recent derby defeat. Liverpool and Chelsea are also entrants in said race - the Reds apparently having had a £22.7m offer turned down on deadline day.

In more bad news for Liverpool that is likely to prompt another of those faces that only Jürgen Klopp and country folk after too much Somerset cider can pull, the club are set to miss out on another target with Alex Teixeira seemingly bound for Jiangsu Suning. Liverpool refused to cough up the £38m they were quoted but money is no issue for the Chinese club who have also recently snared Ramires from Chelsea. In footballing wealth terms, China is really emerging as the next superpower and so before they inevitably host the 2026 World Cup, the domestic league is filling itself with elite talent at exorbitant prices. The latest to join Guangzhou Evergrande is Colombia’s Jackson Martinez for a cool €42m.

In match-made-in-heaven news, Leeds are set to snap up Kyle Lafferty who has been unable to force his way into Alex Neil’s plans at Norwich but who needs a bit of regular first-team football before spearheading Northern Ireland’s assault on Euro 2016. During his time at Palermo, Lafferty was labelled an “out-of-control womaniser” by the club president. What Massimo Cellino will make of him is anyone’s guess.

Enough about transfers though. The Mill knows how to move with the times and the Mill knows its new bread and butter is the managerial merry-go-round. And with Manchester City revealing what everyone already knew, the merry-go-round is go-rounding into overdrive. Where will Manuel Pellegrini go? Well it appears both Chelsea and Manchester United are interested. Both clubs could do far, far worse than the dignified Chilean which inevitably means that he will be overlooked but Valencia is perhaps a more likely option with G-Nev realising it was all a big mistake, desperately longing for the warm bosom of Jamie Carragher and the Monday Night Football studio.

But we’ll leave the final word of today’s tattle to David Sullivan, the West Ham co-chairman, who says he would have signed Charlie Austin if he knew he was available for £4m. That’s the very same Sullivan who provoked a strongly worded statement from Austin after claiming last August, “They say he has no ligaments in his knee, who knows?” when insisting he had no interest in signing the then QPR striker. Oh David.