Transfer Rumor: Arsenal in for Cristian Pavon?

It’s January, and you know what that means. It’s transfer window time again! Arsenal are generally fairly quiet in January, as Arsene doesn’t generally like to shop in-season for the most part, but it’s still transfer season and there are still things to talk about.

This January, of course, the thing to talk about is Alexis Sanchez. More specifically, his eventual replacement, whether he leaves now or in the summer. And on that front, there’s been some noise today about what that replacement might look like.

That replacement might, in fact, look like Boca Juniors’ Cristian Pavon, a highly regarded 21 year old (although he turns 22 on the 21st of this month) product of their academy who is already making a strong impression, and has already made his Argentina international debut in a friendly against Russia. I don’t follow Boca at all, so I can’t speak to his qualities as a player except from what I read in my 90 seconds on the internets, but he seems cast from the same mold as Alexis - all energy, fast moving, and a reasonably good goal threat. He scored 10 goals in 30 appearances last season, and has three in ten this season.

The only stumbling block here would seem to be availability - Boca is open to selling, but doesn’t want to sell in January. The price I’m seeing floating around at which things start getting serious is £20 million, but I’m also seeing that he reportedly has a release clause of £32 million. So Arsenal have a choice: are they serious enough about the kid to lock him down now, or do they wait until the summer and conduct a more open bidding war, with Liverpool, Manchester City, and PSG also kicking Pavon’s metaphorical tires?