Is Zlatan Ibrahimovic a Viable Transfer Target for Arsenal?

You’ve all seen the image by now, a young Zlatan Ibrahimovic grinning for the camera sporting an Arsenal shirt with his name and a No. 9 on the back. If you haven’t, here it is again via PurelyFootball.com.

There is the trademark cocksureness and a mischievous grin that we’d come to know and love over the next decade-and-a-half, but that only tells half the story.

As Ibrahimovic was to reveal years later to the Guardian, he never actually felt close to signing for the Gunners back in 2000, with an apparent disdain at being asked to prove his worth by Arsene Wenger in a trial not going down well with a man who is easily unimpressed.

And so a staggeringly successful career hopping from one major European club to another began—the "Cult of Zlatan" only growing ever bigger as he did so.

Some of the quotes may be dubious and the Twitter account clearly has more voices behind it than just his own, but at 33 the Swede appears to have arrived at the final crossroads of his career, and is focusing on his future rather than his brand. Does he make one last big move or does he see out the final year of his Paris Saint-Germain contract?

Having “done” Holland, Italy, Spain and France, if he were to make that move, then plenty would like to see it be to England, with rumours last week via the Guardian and others claiming that he could be ready to don the perhaps soon-to-be-unused (and generally unlucky) Arsenal No. 9 shirt again.

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Could it really happen, though? Could Wenger really go against his principles that much and sign a player who potentially has just a couple of years left in the game and will be on a huge contract? Well, no. Probably not.

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The Frenchman has brought in experienced players before, with perhaps the best recent example being when he responded to the nightmare start to the 2011/12 season by signing Per Mertesacker, Mikel Arteta, Andre Santos and Yossi Benayoun on deadline day, but Benayoun was the oldest of the quartet at 31 and he was only on loan. He’d have asked for a fraction of the wages that Ibrahimovic would demand, too.

There is a very convincing school of thought to suggest that this to be a summer when Arsenal go big in their attempts to sign a goalscorer, with the back-to-back FA Cups and immense talent in midfield seen as the perfect structure for success.

But as we said at the weekend, Olivier Giroud really hasn’t done a bad job when he’s been called upon by Wenger, and there would be a huge risk of apple carts being upset should Ibrahimovic suddenly rock up back in north London.

Christophe Ena/Associated Press

Of course everybody would love to have a player of the Swede’s immense goalscoring talent in their team, but he would appear to be much more suited to a club such as Chelsea where their game plan would suit his muscular presence and he could play for Jose Mourinho again.

The issue of money wouldn’t be as much of a problem for the Blues either, with Roman Abramovich’s vast sums of cash able to procure pretty much anyone. It looks to be a moot point anyway, though, with the club apparently preferring a move for Radamel Falcao, according to the Daily Star.

It’s far more likely that we’ll see Ibrahimovic stay at Paris Saint-Germain and never make the move to the Premier League to play for Arsenal, Chelsea or anyone else in the division.

The division's marketing executives and headline writers will forever see the Swede as the one that got away, and whilst Wenger and Arsenal might also think the same way given that they had him at the club, in the manager’s office and wearing the kit all those years ago, going back for him now wouldn’t really make much sense.

And that’s before we even consider the possibility that Ibrahimovic would refuse to make the move because of the way he was treated by Wenger back in 2000.

We all know his personality traits, and the holding of grudges has a very good chance to be amongst them.