According to the Daily Mail, and other newspapers, Real Madrid want £37 million for their Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain.

Which would explain why talks seem to have stalled, and why it seems that we’re going after Luis Suarez. There’s also rumours that we’re “in the chase” for Wayne Rooney, although it looks like he is Chelsea-bound.

Back to Higuain, there’s no doubt he is a top quality striker but £37 million for him is well out of Arsenal’s comfort zone. The problem is, the transfer market is hugely inflated – Edinson Cavani went to PSG for £55 million and Radamel Falcao to Monaco to £50 million. They are top strikers and if you compare Higuain to those two players, around £37 million is probably about right.

But Arsenal have never spent anywhere that amount before. Our transfer fee record is at £15 million while other top European teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Monaco, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City have spent massive amounts before and are much more comfortable paying that amount of money for a player.

So that is why we would never pay £37 million for Higuain.

So our attention turns to Luis Suarez. He has his (well reported) problems but is Premier League ready. While I am still pretty uneasy at the prospect of him joining, the £40 million mark makes more sense for his services.

Will we get to the start of the 2013/2014 season having signed no-one?

Many Arsenal fans believe that we won’t land any big players this summer and then Arsene Wenger can “claim” we were after top quality players but the selling clubs were being unreasonable.

With the possibility of Marouane Fellaini and Cesc Fabregas joining Arsenal non-existent, it looks like all the “transfer rumours” surrounding our club are about to dry up.

Arsene Wenger famously said yesterday:

“We work hard but we are not close to signing anybody.”

Excellent.

Arsenal fans know more than most about the “transfer rumours” going around and how the vast majority of them are basically made up. We’ve had links to Fernando Torres, Gareth Barry, Lars Bender, Marouane Fellaini, Gonzalo Higuain, Luis Suarez, Ashley Williams and Wayne Rooney. From all of those names on the list, we’ve only actually made 2 official bids.

Transfer Targets & Deals Reviewed:

So the reports of Athletico Madrid having “wrapped up” a deal for Santi Cazorla aren’t hugely surprising. He’s had a decent season at Arsenal and there’s been so many players linked to transfers it’s just par for the course. Also, reports are saying that Athletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo calling the Cazorla news “inventions”.

Not impossible but hugely unlikely.

Likelihood Rating: 1/10

Then we have Wayne Rooney. He has been trying to wangle his way out of Old Trafford for a couple of months now and news has come out of Chelsea’s bid for the striker, which was understood to be £10 million plus either Juan Mata or David Luiz. The offer is surprising in the sense that both Mata and Luiz in my eyes are top drawer players – but obviously they aren’t in Jose Mourinho’s long term plans.

Edit: The latest suggests that Chelsea actually offered a £20 million straight cash offer.

The most likely suitors would have been Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Monaco, Bayern, Chelsea and Arsenal but Real and Barca have already spent big money, PSG and Monaco have also spent big on Cavani and Falcao, and Bayern don’t seem to the interested. So Chelsea looks the most likely destination.

No doubt that Chelsea will step up their offer for Rooney in the next few days but will Arsenal throw their hat into the ring? I highly doubt it.

Likelihood Rating: 2/10

Now to the man of the moment, the player that divides opinion more than anyone else could, Luis Suarez.

We might as well call him Marmite because people are either strongly against him coming to Arsenal or would welcome him with open arms. We know his problems, and we know what he brings to the team. A very talented player who has Joey Barton tendencies.

It looks like we’re going to follow up our initial £30 million bid to either £35 million or £40 million, depending on which newspapers you believe. It’s even possible we don’t follow up our interest and look somewhere else. Any additional bid at the moment is just hearsay and we won’t know until we hear something concrete from either club.

Do I think we’ll get Suarez? Stranger things have happened.

Likelihood Rating: 6/10

And finally to the forgotten man, Gonzalo Higuain.

Who knows what happened to bringing the Argentine to Arsenal – some reports suggest we had the deal in the bag, while others suggest we merely made enquiries but didn’t want to pay Real Madrid’s valuation.

Of late, things have got extremely quiet and the deal looks to be completely dead. So unless a major turn around happens I can’t see this happening. Which is a shame really as I really thought he would fit in really well at Arsenal and give us that extra leap in quality we badly need.

Likelihood Rating: 2/10

Ever since the news that Arsenal tabled a £30 million bid for Suarez I’ve been confused. Why would Arsene and Arsenal bid for a player with so many problems? Why smash our record transfer fee on a player that will be banned for the first month of the season? It doesn’t make any sense.

So then I thought we might be playing games with Real Madrid and somehow we were trying to force through the Gonzalo Higuain deal (seriously, what has happened with that?).

But now it seems, if you believe what the papers say, that we’re willing to increase our bid to £35 million or £40 million and test Liverpool’s resolve.

So what is going on?

Regular readers will know that from the beginning, I have been hugely against Suarez joining Arsenal. I’ve said it a million times but he’s been banned for racism, banned for biting other players and if you watch this video, he is a vicious human being:

Then you see a video like this and you think he could change:

I honestly don’t know if the silly season has gone to my head, or the current heatwave has frazzled my brain, but from being massively against Suarez coming to Arsenal, I am starting to come around to the idea that the Uruguayan could come to The Emirates.

Aside from his obvious attitude problems, my argument was that if we were going to spend £40 million plus on a player, then surely there is someone else out there who is a better fit for Arsenal. But then, maybe Arsene knows what he’s after and thinks Suarez is the man, and maybe that’s why we’ve cooled off getting Higuain.

Arsene’s transfer dealings of late have been hit and miss, and ironically, it is the more defensive positions where he has got things more right than wrong. You cannot deny that Mertesacker, Koscielny and Arteta have been excellent for us, while Podolski, Giroud and Gervinho have failed to set the world alight. We’ve also had Santos come in who has been nothing short of embarrassing.

But maybe with Champions League football and a “more likely” chance of winning the Premier League as opposed to Liverpool (don’t laugh) then he might be more focused and concentrate on scoring goals. Could some of the disturbing actions he’s been guilty of be down to playing in a side where they’re destined to finish 7th in the league? Could it be because he’s frustrated at losing too many games? At Arsenal, you would expect a side like us to create a decent number of clear opportunities per game for him.

A concern I’ve had is his shots to goals ratio. He was only the 23rd “most clinical striker” in the league last season and despite being second in the goal-scoring charts, his conversion rate is poor. Maybe that’s because he shoots from ridiculous angles, maybe it’s because he’s greedy, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t believe in his team mates. I’ve always felt that his finishing wasn’t the best, and we’ll all remember the number of chances he missed against us last season at Anfield when Arsenal took all 3 points thanks for Podolski and Cazorla.

If we’re serious in getting him, Arsene must truly believe that he can settle Suarez down and get the best out of him, and more importantly that he fits into the Arsenal style of play.

At the time of writing, the voting on this mornings poll was at 58% in favour of having Suarez join Arsenal. So have we Arsenal fans left our morals at the door because we’re so desperate for success? Or do we actually believe he can change and become that prolific striker we desperately need?

Let’s end with a positive video, one that includes his best ever goals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoHyH61ZUiM

There’s been a lot of opinion on the possibility of Arsenal signing Luis Suarez. When I first heard about the £30 million bid, my initial thoughts were that I didn’t want him at Arsenal and one of the reasons was because he is overrated. Added to the fact he is a racist who likes to eat other human beings, it would not be a good fit for us, in my opinion.

But now it seems Arsenal might increase their bid for him and test Liverpool’s resolve.

There is a definite split between Arsenal fans as to whether they want the Liverpool striker at The Emirates. Without trying to sound like Jeremy Clarkson, “some say” he’s exactly what we need – while others say he has no place at our club.

So I thought I would do a very simple poll to gauge supporter opinion – simply, do you want Luis Suarez at Arsenal?

I thought about having more than two answers but there are no other conditions really – if we take him then he will have the same attitude he’s had when he was at Liverpool and Ajax. Throughout his footballing career he hasn’t shown that he is capable of changing. He deliberately hand-balled a goal-bound shot in the World Cup, dives and cheats as well as being extremely outspoken. Whatever you think about Liverpool, they have supported Luis Suarez through his racist displays (even wearing Suarez t-shirts to show support) and through his other misdemeanours. Yet, he has constantly said he wants to leave Liverpool. And if he wasn’t content about saying he wants to “move abroad” because the media are persecuting him, he’s now turned around and said he would actually be open to a move to Arsenal.

You all know what I think about him. He’s a racist, cheat, diver and bites people. I don’t care how talented you are I don’t want to see him in an Arsenal shirt. As Arseblog pointed out, we’ve had players who have had problems before but those players have usually grown up with the club and shown remorse for their actions. We’ve never forked out £35 million plus for a player with a lot of problems.

So Luis Suarez – do you want him at Arsenal?

We’ve been linked with so many players this summer and in the end, only put in 2 official bids. £18.5 million for Lars Bender of Bayer Leverkusen and £30 million for Luis Suarez of Liverpool. The rest, are just paper talk and hearsay.

As well as the players mentioned, we’ve also been “linked” with Gonzalo Higuain, Stevan Jovetic, Julio Cesar, Wayne Rooney, Marouane Fellaini, Fernando Torres, Gareth Barry and Ashley Williams. But despite all of the rumours, we have yet to sign anyone.

Mikel Arteta has come out and said he believes that the time is now for Arsenal to spend big and create a squad that can really compete at the highest level and win trophies. He also said that the Arsenal dressing room a great place to be right now, as there is an excitement going around as to who Arsenal will bring in.

Oxlade-Chamberlain has also been positive about any possible signings, adding it adds competition for places and creates a stronger group of players overall.

So if the fans were excited about new arrivals, then so are the players it seems.

But who will we sign?

Arsenal are notoriously secretive about their transfer dealings and despite the season finishing over 2 months ago, we only know of 2 official bids that we have made.

With the media obviously making up stories and linking us with anyone who is available, who are we actually going to sign?

Who do you think Arsenal are chasing and who do you think will actually be an Arsenal player before the start of next season?

Answers on a postcard!