A new report of an Arsenal raid on West Ham for Jarrod Bowen is utterly comical as the transfer window silly season begins.
Both West Ham and Arsenal desperately need to sign a new striker this summer.
Alexandre Lacazette has left Arsenal for Lyon and the future of reported West Ham target Eddie Nketiah is unclear with the Gunners still trying to persuade the out-of-contract striker to sign a new deal.
West Ham’s only senior striker Michail Antonio struggled in the second half of last season. But Jarrod Bowen made up for the profligate forward’s shortcomings by bagging 18 goals and 13 assists for the Hammers.
That form has seen Bowen linked with a move to Liverpool but West Ham will be confident of keeping hold of their latest England player while Mohamed Salah remains at Anfield.
The summer transfer window officially opened on Friday and both Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta and West Ham manager David Moyes have plenty of work to do.
But it also means fans have to suffer some rather ridiculous rumours over the next three months.
And they won’t get much more laughable than a claim made on The Beautiful Game Podcast – as also reported by Sports Mole.
The new report of an Arsenal raid on West Ham for Bowen is utterly comical as the transfer window silly season begins.
The Beautiful Game Podcast report that the Gunners have begun negotiations over a potential move to bring Bowen to the Emirates during the summer transfer window.
Posting on their official Twitter account on Saturday, the podcast said: “Arsenal have opened contact with the representatives of Jarrod Bowen over a possible transfer.
“He’s amongst their list of potential transfer targets, which includes Leeds United’s Raphinha.”
In fairness The Beautiful Game Podcast does clearly have contacts – particularly at Arsenal – having posted a number of exclusive video interviews with players such as Nketiah.
But this rumour is surely nonsense.
Even if Arsenal are interested in West Ham’s star attacker, there is no way Bowen would see that move as a step up right now. Certainly not a significant one.
West Ham and Arsenal are competing for the same positions in the Premier League in recent years.
If Bowen was ever going to leave West Ham it would be for a club playing Champions League football most seasons.
It would be like reporting West Ham want Bukayo Saka or Emile Smith-Rowe for goodness sake.
I think we can safely consign this particular report to the transfer rumour bin.