Wenger eyes Jovetic to replace RVP
With Paris St-Germain, Juventus, Manchester City and Barcelona queueing up to pay up to £25million for the unsettled Robin van Persie, manager Arsene Wenger last night prepared to answer his critics with moves to replace him.
And as Real Madrid moved closer to the capture of Luka Modric, Spurs new boss Andre Villas-Boas has already earmarked where some of the £28m he is expected to get for the Croatian playmaker will go.
Wenger is understood to have Fiorentina striker Stevan Jovetic as his No.1 target, but he faces competition from Chelsea for a player who is also valued at around £25m.
Borussia Dortmund’s Polish ace, Robert Lewandowski, 23, is believed to be next on the list.
AVB, who would appear to have eased some of the pain of losing Modric with the £6m signing of Gylfi Sigurdsson, has also set his sights on a new striker.
Spurs have already had a £12m bid for Internacional’s Leandro Damiao knocked back. But after completing the signing of Diego Forlan from Inter Milan yesterday as a potential replacement, the Brazilians seem to have cleared the way for the 22-yearold to move to White Hart Lane.
And the new boss, with money to spend and boardroom ambitions to match, isn’t likely to stop there.
A new goalkeeper is believed to be high on his priorities with Lille’s Hugo Lloris and Birmingham’s highly rated Jack Butland topping the list of targets.
But it is at Arsenal where the impetus looks likely to gather pace this week.
Wenger and owner Stan Kroenke are smarting over the criticism of the way they run the club in the wake of Van Persie’s decision to quit. And they are likely to answer that within the next few days.
The manager has had reservations about Van Persie’s long-term fitness and is believed to have told his board not to bust a gut to keep him if a realistic offer came along, even before the Dutchman went public with his doubts about club policy.
As a result, despite forking out more than £20m to sign Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud, Arsenal will spend again on another striker if they have to – and they have at least two to offer in part exchange as well if need be.
Neither Marouane Chamakh or Nicklas Bendtner are in the manager’s plans anymore and could both be used in player-plus-cash deals.
Rafael van der Vaart is another high-profile player being linked with a move away from the capital.
Hamburg sporting director Frank Arnesen is keeping a close eye on the Tottenham playmaker. Arnesen admits he would welcome the opportunity to take Van der Vaart back to Germany four years after he departed the Imtech Arena.
It has been suggested that he could be lured back to Hamburg this summer, with Villas-Boas prepared to listen to offers.
There has been no official word from the White Hart Lane camp, though, and Arnesen admits there is little he can do until the player expresses a desire to move on.
“I can only say that he is a great player and one that knows Hamburg very well,” Arnesen said.
“I don’t want to talk about it too much because Van der Vaart has a contract at Tottenham Hotspur until 2015.
“If I get a signal from his end that there might be something, things will be different.
“At the moment it is not practical. He is on holiday after the European Championships.”
The Dutch international enjoyed three productive years in the Bundesliga between 2005 and 2008, before moving to Spanish giants Real Madrid and then on to Tottenham.