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There have been rumors swirling around a possible Arsenal pursuit of striker Alvaro Morata for quite a while now. They've come from Italy, the Guardian, and even from Matt Law and Jeremy Wilson. But it's all been pretty preliminary stuff, nothing with any real substance. Well, here's even less substance!
BOOM! Arsenal have made a bid of 50m€ for Morata. Real Madrid valuing what to do
— Tancredi Palmeri (@tancredipalmeri) May 23, 2016
Sorry. If you're unaware, Tancredi Palmeri is honestly probably the least reliable journalist in all of soccer – I'm not even sure where he gets his information or what his agenda is, but he's basically the next step above one of those fake ITK accounts.
Possibly more reliable (but probably not by much) is Manuel Esteban "Manolete," who writes for the Spanish paper AS. They're not the experts on Real Madrid matters that Marca is – remember, while Morata is a Juventus player, Real have a buy-back clause that they can exercise to make sure they're the ones profiting on a sale. But still:
#Morata sigue marcando las diferencias. Su futuro va a ser el #Arsenal y va a ser nuestra referencia en el ataque para #DelBosque.
— Manolete (@AS_Manolete) May 23, 2016
In English, that says (according to the translate-a-tweet function:
#Morata continues to mark the differences. Their future is going to be the #Arsenal and will be our reference in attack for #DelBosque.
Basically, Morata's coming to Arsenal and he's going to be Spain's main striker going forward. Again, this isn't a source to take much from, as far as we know, so don't get too excited.
Juventus manager Max Allegri, for what it's worth, sounds like he'd like to keep Morata around.
Mercato, le parole di #Allegri su #Morata. @NickCecca: "Sullo spagnolo c'è l'offerta al Real dell'Arsenal" #ask442 pic.twitter.com/j8HDWmBtax
— SportMediaset.it (@Sport_Mediaset) May 23, 2016
The translated version of that is:
His goal against Milan and a sign of continuity. And a young boy and he needs to stay a few more years at Juve, it needs to grow. I still have a very strong attacking department.
Make sense? Long story short, there's a lot of smoke around this right now but at this juncture, it could be anything. It could be actual interest, and a possible real transfer. It could also very well be Morata's agent trying to force something like a new contract or a move back to Real Madrid. It could be someone in Madrid trying to gin up an auction so they get loads more money for the player. It's impossible to tell until we have some more concrete movement and better information, so remain calm for the moment.