About Arsenal’s rumored bid for Wolfsburg’s Julian Draxler...

This is where things start to get weird. Happy silly season!

According to The Sun, “ESPN [is] reporting” Arsenal have made a bid of €50m (about £42.6m) for 22-year-old German midfielder Julian Draxler of Wolfsburg. Draxler, a past target of Arsenal’s before his transfer out of Schalke to his current club, is an attacking midfielder with a promising future. The German scored 6 goals and registered 5 assists in 24 appearances last year and can play across the advanced positions in midfield.

Is there a catch? Absolutely. Although this image is being held out as the source of this “report,” ESPN hasn’t actually written up anything about this anywhere. We don’t know the context of the report - whether it was an actual report or one of those “transfer gossip” reports where people just say idiotic things because it’s fun to do so.

I’ve been doing things like this long enough that I think I have a feel for when there’s enough there to start sniffing around. I don’t think I’d even call this smoke at this point - it’s more that somebody has called in smoke to a local fire watch station, but it could just be a prank caller. At this point, this rumor is just that: a rumor. I give it absolutely no credence until someone reliable has actually put their name on it.

Could this turn into something? Absolutely. Would we be excited about it? I’ve seen at least one TSF writer say they’d be over the moon if we brought in Draxler. At this point, though, the rumor merits little more than a very healthy dose of skepticism. Watch this space.