Emirates Stadium side will have to break the club’s transfer record to land experienced striker.
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Arsene Wenger has reportedly been told that if he wishes to continue to pursue Barcelona forward David Villa then he will have to fork out £17m for the 31 year old striker according to talkSPORT.
The Arsenal boss is more used to signing players a decade younger than the Spanish international and the idea that he would break the club’s transfer record to bring in the Nou Camp bit-part player may be hard for Gunners fans to swallow, meaning his push to sign the former Valencia man may be at an end.
Villa will have a year to run on his current contract by the time the summer transfer window opens but even then it seems the La Liga side wishes to get a big fee for the striker, which is perhaps unsurprising given they paid upwards of £30m to sign the striker in May 2010.
Given the price it seems very likely Wenger will look at other potential striker signings as he looks to beef up his Emirates Stadium attack.
Alternatively he could choose to play Lukas Podolski in a central striking role if he feels this would be an adequate back-up option to support Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott.