Analysing the Transfer gossip – 17th June: Part 1: Robinho, Bale, Koscielny and more

Barcelona are set to make a £9.5m move for Arsenal centre-back Laurent Koscielny, 27, after giving up on Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany, Paris St-Germain’s Thiago Silva and Chelsea’s David Luiz.

Full story: Marca

What’s the story? As I profiled here; Arsenal cannot sell Koscielny. Barcelona are touring the top centre backs looking to fill their biggest hole.Does it make sense? Certainly for Barcelona but absolutely not for Arsenal.Is the price right? Absolutely not. All of these options they’ve given up on have been valued at £30m+ and yet Koscielny is £9.5m? That’s pretty much what Arsenal paid.Will it happen? 5/10 – You can’t really rule it out. The apparent Arsenal assault on the transfer market hasn’t happened yet, maybe it’ll go the other way after all?