Arsenal transfer roundup: Wilshere, Casillas, and Milner

As the days get longer, the weather gets warmer, and the leaves return to trees, summer nears. With summer comes the end of the Premier League season, and the opening of the transfer window. It's everyone's favorite time of year, obviously. The rumors are starting to increase in number and (occasionally) in actually making sense, so we'll try to sift through what's there and find the occasional diamond in the proverbial rough.

Jack Wilshere

First today, we have young Jack Wilshere. He hasn't had the best season for Arsenal this year, but he certainly hasn't had the worst -- but the word is that as you might expect, he wants to play, and as you can see from watching any Arsenal game, there's not a lot of space available in the midfield, with Aaron Ramsey, Santi Cazorla, Mesut Ozil, and Francis Coquelin pretty much nailing down starting jobs. Arsene Wenger has allegedly told teams to back off, but that hasn't kept Manchester City from showing interest in a move, according to the Mirror.

I'd rather keep Wilshere personally, as I still think he has potential to realize and I'd rather he do it here. But if City offer £30 million for a guy with three years left on his contract, that might be too good to pass up -- especially since we probably need to add quality in the holding midfield position anyway, which would further reduce the chances of Wilshere finding playing time. It is, of course, possible (or even likely!) that this is something Wilshere's agent has thrown out there in the hopes of getting a new contract or forcing playing time. This will probably persist all summer, so we'll see what happens.

Iker Casillas

The Spanish goalkeeper was a rumored target last year, and evidently is again. According to the Spanish paper La Sexta (somewhere on the scale of believability near the Mirror or the Daily Mail, I'm told), there's mutual interest between Casillas and Arsenal. Managing Madrid says that Real Madrid would likely cover most or all of Casillas' contract, which would be nice. I'm not sure about this because we already have three goalkeepers of varying but reasonably good ability, but if we sell one or more, it could happen. Casillas isn't the player he once was, certainly, but if we think he can still do the job, I'm happy to have him. I do think a lot of things would need to happen to make this deal a reality, though, so it's another "wait and see" situation.

James Milner

The world's most normal person may not be renewing his long-rumored Arsenal link this summer, as the Metro (among others) is reporting not only that Liverpool is interested in bringing him in on a free transfer, but that the deal is already done. That's not really a huge deal -- Milner's a fine player, but not necessarily one that Arsenal desperately needs -- but since it's Metro, I'm also going to wait and see if this is a real thing. Because it might not be.