Marca: Arsenal will sign Sahin on loan

According to the Spanish paper Marca earlier today, Arsenal will sign Real Madrid midfielder Nuri Sahin on a year's loan, as the short-on-playing-time young Turk looks for some actual games away from the Bernabéu.

Of course, shortly thereafter they amended it, saying that he's likely be in the Premier League, and that Arsenal were interested, but also maintaining that Madrid have interest in using Sahin as a makeweight in any potential Luka Modric deal, while Tottenham Hotspur prefer to stick with a strict "cash only" policy.

I really love transfer season, you guys.

Arseblog News had the report about two hours ago, but after Marca adjusted their story added in this screenshot of the original. Good news someone over there thinks faster than I do about things like that. Considering the assuredness of the original (the first sentence is simply "Nuri Sahin will play for Arsenal next season"), it's a little odd, but this reporter hopes they were just hedging their bets.

Marca are occasionally terrible, but occasionally spot-on with their reports, so this one is clearly still a bit up in the air. However, it seems the prevailing sentiment among People Who Should Know is that the original report is correct, and Sahin should be in the red and white this season.

Sahin has been mentioned in a possible part-swap for Luka "GET ME OUT OF HERE" Modric, which this would obviously prevent. That's not insane, though, as Jose Mourinho likes Sahin and wants to keep him long-term (though evidently not enough to give him more than four league games last season). According to a report from Managing Madrid, SB Nation's Real Madrid blog, the Spanish club has agreed to two separate deals with Tottenham over Modric, one including Sahin and one involving only money. As Mourinho has the final say over the deal, it would appear that he'd decided not to lose the Turkish midfielder on a permanent basis.

Sahin, from what I know of him (since Mourinho never plays him it's a bit hard to tell, really) is a central midfielder who can play both in a holding role and a bit farther forward, and is somewhat of a complete midfielder capable of doing a lot of different things well. He'd certainly be good enough to start or act as an impact sub in games where the midfield was stagnant, and would offer cover for the still-injured Jack Wilshere while he continues to rehab his various injuries, and to split time with him and the rest of Arsenal's current midfield once Wilshere returns (which hopefully will actually happen at some point).

At this point, the recommendation is to hope against hope that Marca are on a "knowing things" kick right now rather than a "making things up" kick, and that this comes to pass. It would be a massive, if (likely) temporary addition to the Arsenal midfield. But practice caution, as always, as this is not at all a done deal.