Almost Done – Arsenal To Set To Pay £36m Release Clause Of Attacker

Reports have been filtering in that Arsenal are lining up a bid to poach one of Manchester United’s target Julian Draxler.  Arsene Wenger is believed to be ready to match the attacker’s £36m buy-out clause in January. Since breaking into the first team at German outfit Schalke 04 as a teenager in 2011, the youngster has become one of the most versatile young strikers in Europe.

Julian’s fine form has placed him under the radar of several of Europe’s finest clubs especially real Madrid and Manchester United both of whom are reportedly monitoring his form. For most part of the last year, Arsenal have also been linked with the 20-year-oldbut had their bid rejected as the German club insisted on nothing below the attackers buyout clause.

It now appears that Arsene Wenger has not relented as The Express can now confirm that the Gunner boss is only waiting till the New Year to snap up the highly rated attacker having resolved to fork out the required fee. The Frenchman is widely known for his extra-ordinary prudence when it concerns player transfers and until recently when he surprisingly sanctioned the signing of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez from Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, many still referred to the Arshavin saga when the Russian had to add personal money to make-up his transfer fee, to back up their claim.

However, this time, the Arsenal manager might be doing this out of lack of options. His side has managed only two victories in their opening seven Premier League fixtures this season and also injuries to several squad members including Mesut Ozil, Oliver Giroud, Aaron Ramsey, Mikel Arteta, Mathieu Debuchy and Theo Walcot amongst others.

Although the French man has another three striking options in summer arrival Danny Welbeck, Lukas Podolski and Joel Campbell, it has also been reported that either of Podolski or Campbell might probably get the boot if Julian finally gets hired.

Manchester United on the other hand seems to have relaxed in the chase for the striker and might be unfazed if Arsenal eventually land him by January. Louis van Gaal surely has a lot of problems that he has to fix during the January transfer window but the striking department certainly doesn’t rank among. The Dutchman already has more than enough attacking options in the prolific trio of Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao. This is not to include the serious competition that now exists between Adnan Januzaj, Juan Mata and James Wilson. In fact Manchester United had too much of a striking force that they had to sell one off to their North London rivals and loaned another over to Madrid.

Louis van Gaal’s problem will be to hire seasoned players to inject class in the midfield and defencesection and if he does have an extra £36m chilling somewhere, then a world class Centre-Back or perhaps a Defensive Midfielder wouldn’t be too much to ask for.