Gunners close in on Cazorla deal
Santi Cazorla is in London finalising his move to Arsenal
Santi Cazorla is poised to become an Arsenal player early next week.
The Spain midfielder is in London finalising his move and Press Association Sport understands he will be part of the Gunners squad which travels to Germany for a training camp next week if, as expected, the deal is formally completed by then.
Arsenal will take on Cologne next Sunday in a friendly arranged as part of the deal which brought Lukas Podolski to the Emirates Stadium.
The club have not yet been able to formally announce the signing of Cazorla owing to complications caused by the financial plight of his current club Malaga, but the Spanish side's problems are not expected to jeopardise the completion of the deal.
The recruitment of Cazorla would be the third major piece of transfer business completed by Arsenal in the close season, with Podolski and Montpellier forward Olivier Giroud also coming in.
They have also been heavily linked with Real Madrid midfielder Nuri Sahin, with Real boss Jose Mourinho saying the player can leave the Bernabeu.
Cazorla was part of Spain's victorious Euro 2012 squad, but only featured for 16 minutes during the tournament in Poland and Ukraine.
He was Malaga's flagship signing of last summer but the club are experiencing severe financial difficulties and look set to offload a number of big names before the new Primera Division campaign begins.
Meanwhile, Arsenal striker Benik Afobe has joined Bolton on a season-long loan deal. The 19-year-old England youth international is set for a second spell playing in the npower Championship, having ended the last campaign on loan at Reading and helping them win promotion to the Barclays Premier League.
A short statement on www.arsenal.com confirmed the news, adding: "Everyone at the club wishes Benik well for his time with Bolton." Afobe follows Jack Wilshere and Ryo Miyaichi in going on loan from the north London club to Bolton.
related stories on msn
Lewis Day
First of all, you clearly know quite little about football. Santi Cazorla has never played for Real Madrid. At least try to check your facts are correct before mouthing off.
As for City, yes they have bought many of our players in recent seasons. However, out of all of those players that they've bought from us, Nasri is the only one who was a big loss to Arsenal. Adebayor was a one season wonder and a disturbance in the dressing room, so we did well to offload him. Clichy was always a defensive liability for us, and Toure was past it. How does selling those players to City make us their feeder club?
Whatever happens next season, I'm quite comfortable in my mind that we will be finishing above you next season, so I doubt you will need to pay much attention to our league position. Nice to see you're optimistic though, even if that optimism is fuelled by delusion.
Nice to see the anti-Arsenal/Wenger haters and plastic fans are on an Arsenal story and still obsessed by all things Arsenal with their usual pre-season gibberish!
Haven't you lot learnt yet???
Every year we are written off 'no top 4 finish', 'no CL', 'mid-table team', 'relegated', etc, etc, etc, YAWN zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
When will you lot learn?
Arsenal have consistently been one of the top 4 sides in the EPL, one of the top 10 sides in Europe. Ranked 4th after Utd, Real & Barca as the richest merchandise revenue creating clubs. The richest deft-free self-financing club in the world. Increased merchandising at the club and fan base by 1000% as well as making Arsenal FC a houshold name around the world by playing entertaining passing footie. All done on a p1ssant budget during a period of transition where the priority has been to repay the new stadium debt instead of investing money in the squad.
Take a good look at Arsenal's new signings, we did not have to break transfer fee records or pay extortionate wages like many a club need to do just to be successful.
Moaned at for not spending money then when we do moaned at again!
DO MAKE YOUR MINDS UP!
EVEN IF WE BROKE THE BANK, BOUGHT MESSI AND WON EVERY TROPHY IN SIGHT SOME OF YOU ON HERE WOULD STILL BE BLOODY MOANING ABOUT SOMETHING!!!
Do grow up please and keep your misguided prejudices to yourself!
Now I personally don't know if Arsenal will win the EPL or win a trophy but they seem to be reinforcing the squad quite well and look much stronger on paper than they did last year so I'm expecting to see a much better performance this coming season and any trophy that comes will be icing on the cake but a top 4 finish and CL qualification is expected.
looks like another good signing with carzola looks a real good player and for about 16 mil probs about right wenger is definitly doing ok in the trasfer market this season bringing in podolski who is a reguar in the german national team and giroud if wasnt for benzema he would have been france's leading striker so i think arsenal are heading in the right direction a top four finish is definitly on the cards forthem to finish 1st i think he would seriously need to add another 2 top players to his squad but theres still time left so you never know
