Wilfried Zaha is probably not going to be an Arsenal player

Ah, transfer season. There’s rumors, and then there’s rumors. The idea of Wilfried Zaha coming to Arsenal falls into the latter category. Even if it made sense financially - which it doesn’t - bringing in a forward wouldn’t seem to be the smartest thing Arsenal could do with its relatively limited transfer budget this summer.

After all, forward is where both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette play. I’m not sure if you know this, but both those guys? Pretty good. So in order to bring in Zaha, scorer of ten Premier League goals last year, Arsenal would have to not only bench one of Lacazette (19 goals) or Aubameyang (joint Golden Boot winner with 31).

And it gets worse! Crystal Palace have, rightfully, slapped an £80 million price tag on Zaha’s services - they just lost Aaron Wan-Bissaka to Manchester United, and they probably don’t want to lose another of their main offensive weapons. Arsenal, as we all know, have a transfer budget of half of one Wilfried Zaha, which means that if Arsenal want to bring Zaha aboard, they’ll have to get creative, and maybe spread that fee out over several years, and more than likely sell one of their two best players in order to do the deal.

I know it’s not as simple as looking at goal totals, but if Arsenal sell one of their two stars to bring in a lesser producer for more money...wow, that’d be bad business.

But never fear! The always-reliable David Ornstein is here to pour some water on this potential trash fire:

For once, Arsenal’s limited budget is helping them out, not hindering them! Arsenal have so many needs this offseason that aren’t at forward that bringing in the likes of Wilfried Zaha would be a headscratcher, at best. But it looks like not having a Champions League-level budget, in this case, is saving Arsenal from themselves, and for that we should all be happy.