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Yesterday we had a report from the (notoriously not-super-reliable) Sun that Borussia Dortmund midfielder/winger Henrikh Mkhitaryan might be interested in leaving Germany for Arsenal, among a few other clubs in England who might be interested. Way back then, I said this:
There are several reasons to coat this with a pile of grains of salt, so let's get to that...There is of course...the fact that Borussia Dortmund have, in the past, not been afraid to keep a player threatening to run out his contract for a final year. They did exactly that with Robert Lewandowski, and there's been lots of talk that the same will happen with Mkhitaryan.
At the moment, I'd grade this move as unlikely. If someone who's actually remotely reliable reports it that could change, but I'm not getting my hopes up until we can do better than the Sun.
Well, we may already have someone "better than the Sun."
According to Kicker Dortmund might think about selling Mkhitaryan this summer after all if he refuses to extend his contract. #BVB
— Sandra Goldschmidt (@SanBorussia) June 5, 2016
Provided that a club would offer a big transfer fee for Mkhitaryan, approximately 35 Million Euros. (via Kicker) #LT #BVB
— Sandra Goldschmidt (@SanBorussia) June 5, 2016
Kicker is considered to be one of the most reliable outlets in Germany, if not the most reliable, so one of the biggest stumbling blocks to a deal – that is, Dortmund's reluctance to sell in a window where they've already lost Mats Hummels and Ilkay Gundogan – appears as if it could be removed. If the asking price really is €35 million (that's a little over £27 million), honestly that's not that much for a good player.
There's no guarantee that Arsenal are interested, and if there's interest there's no guarantee that we'll actually succeed in going after him. But the door's open a lot wider than it looked like it was yesterday. This might end up being something to actually keep an eye on.