Julain Draxler's Arsenal Opus

As always, the guess-work Guru's, fans & journalists have ran themselves ragged trying to get the lowdown on any of Arsenal's transfer targets in the January transfer-window. Whilst all manor of players have (& continue to) been linked with the club, one name that refuses to give up the ghost is that of exciting, hot young German, Julian Draxler. You can't get away from it!

20 year old Draxler is carrying on where he left off last campaign, impressing this season for his club (Schalke) and perplexing defences in the Bundesliga & now the Champions League, with his pace, passing, intelligent runs & dynamic dribbling style!

From a personal point of view, I'm a fan of the player, I have been for a while now. Seen by many as the "best" of an incredibly talented bunch of hot talent coming out of Germany, Draxler has no shortage of admirers. Inevitably he's been linked with many of Europe's phallus-swinging-powerhouses & most recently (last summer), Chelsea & Arsenal were enquiring about the young German.

Draxler has pace, in spades, he also has the admirable trait of being able to play pretty much ANYWHERE in an offensive midfield capacity. Be it mesmerising fullbacks on either flank, pulling the strings as a central "creative" midfielder, or playing as a traditional "number 10", playing just off of a centre-forward.

Encouragingly for Arsenal, Draxler has recently been very vocal in his admiration for Arsenal, their style of football and (like so many players do) Monsieur Wenger. His current emplyers, Schalke might not have been overly impressed with Draxler's overt flirting & romantic overtures towards the red half of North London. And just to add fuel to an already rampant, rumour-driven, Germanic fire, Draxler was left "incredibly impressed" after being shown around Arsenal's training facilities recently. The insinuation that Draxler had been given the special treatment and subsequent tour of the clubs world-renowned training facilities, as well as a stadium tour, was dismissed by Wenger, who went on to joke about UFO's, but funnily enough did not outrightly deny any such "tour" took place. It was the players agent who supposedly leaked details of Draxler's dirty weekend in London.

If you're to take Arsène Wenger's recent comments as gospel (this guy loves a red-herring remember) then Draxler making a move to the Emirates this January is neither a likely or realistic prospect. Schalke will be loathed to part with their young talisman halfway through the season. But the noises coming out of Germany are getting increasingly louder that it's now very likely that the player will leave Schalke this summer & that Arsenal are "heavy favourites" to secure his signature.

Jan-Aage Fjortoft (ex-Norway international & Swindon Town striker), is now one of Germany's most respected, erudite football journalists/pundits & was recently quoted as saying; "Julian Draxler is still most likely to sign for Arsenal". Any would-be transfer is rumoured to cost a buyer in & around 45 million Euros.

In an ideal world, it'd be desirable & a real coup for Arsenal to be able to twist Schalke's arm & persuade them to part company with the midfield architect this January, but the reality is that the chances of that happening decrease with every passing January day. That said, Wenger himself admitted in contradictory fashion that any transfer dealings would be "done in the last 2 or 3 days (of the window), as always..."

However, IF there is any truth in the rumours that German football's "next big thing" is on-course to hook up with his compatriots Podolski, Metesacker & Mesut Özil this summer (if not in the current transfer-window), you can rest assured that football purists and of course the Arsenal faithful will be wonderfully tense in anticipation of such an exciting prospect becoming part of what is a work-in-progress, beautiful, offensive footballing machine.

Click here to check a video of how the Youngster has fared so far this season

Here's a Squawka graph for Draxler's performances.

Click here to check out more Draxler's Statistics this season (By Squawka)

Author: Joel Coote (Twitter handle: @MoistFootball)

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