La Liga

Arsenal Closing In On Malaga Winger Santi Cazorla

Spanish international Cazorla, who was part of Spain’s Euro 2012 winning squad, is being targeted by Arsenal in a £16m move from cash-strapped Malaga.

Arsenal were interested in Cazorla last season before he joined Malaga from Villarreal. But with Malaga imploding financially, despite being owned by petro-dollars, are seemingly interested in selling Cazorla for around £16m. More importantly, Cazorla has made it clear to his advisers he is interested in joining the Gunners.

Cazorla has a 45 million Euro buy-out clause but could leave for less than half of that because Malaga need to pay off debts to avoid punishment by the Spanish football authorities.

Cazorla is one of several players owed unpaid wages and wants to quit with the club now seeing his sale as the easiest way to solve their financial problems.

Hopefully Arsenal can close the Carzorla deal before the van Persie saga is completed, as well as the transfers of Nicklas Bendtner ( Galatasaray are in talks with him) and Andrey Arshavin (eyeing a move to the Middle East).

The Bendtner and Arshavin tranfer fees will all buy pay for the purchase of Carzorla. The question is whether Arsenal’s board and money men will sign off on the deal before the funds for the other two sales are completed.