Emirates Stadium side keen to bring in top-notch forward.
Arsene Wenger will look to land long term target Karim Benzema this summer and is ready to offload forward Olivier Giroud in order to land the Real Madrid star according to the Goal.com.
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The north London side signed off their Premier League season with a four goal haul against West Brom, but had struggled to find the back of the net in recent weeks.
Though French international Giroud has been in fine form across the season, the experienced forward has also been found wanting in patches of the campaign, and as such it’s perhaps not surprising that Wenger would look to strengthen his Gunners attack.
The 28 year old former Montpellier man has bagged 14 goals in 27 Premier League fixtures this season but a failure to net in any of his last eight appearances may well act as motivation for Wenger’s renewed push to capture Benzema.
Goal.com claim that Benzema is ‘interested’ in a move to the Emirates Stadium, and suggest the Gunners hope to agree a fee of £35 million for the striker.
One would have to wonder why such a move would require the need to sell Giroud to fund the move. Arsenal certainly have other attackers in their squad whose departure would have less of an impact.
Wenger loaned out Lukas Podolski, Yaya Sanogo and Joel Campbell to Inter Milan, Crystal Palace and Villarreal respectively in January, and sales of the trio would seemingly represent less of an impact on Arsenal’s first team squad setup.
Carlo Ancelotti showed a great deal of faith in Benzema during his stint in charge at the Bernabeu and now that the Italian has left, the future may be unclear for the former Lyon man.
Hauls of 24 and 22 goals respectively over the past two campaigns are not to be sniffed at, and Benzema’s physique would certainly lend itself well to life in the rough and tumble confines of the Premier League.