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Hot Football Transfer Gossip: Benzema ‘fed up’, Coutinho ‘eyes Barcelona’

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Arsenal’s eight goals in their last two league games have been the best medicine for those Gunners fans, and maybe the manager, who have been sick with rage about the club’s failure to land a top striker. Added to the fact the club can’t sign anyone until January anyway, and realistically won’t make any mega signings until next summer, we may have finally arrived at the point where Arsene Wenger can relax and be happy with what he’s got: an in-form Theo Walcott, an out-of-form Olivier Giroud and half a Danny Welbeck, with Alexis thrown in.

But like a girl trying to make Wenger jealous purely because she suspects he is starting to fancy someone else, look which sexy frontman has suddenly had a little attention-seeking rant: it’s Karim Benzema. The Real Madrid striker has said he is “fed up” with continually being substituted by manager Rafael Benitez, an outburst which according to the Independent has put Arsenal on “red alert”.

We know Benzema isn’t interested is Arsenal. He led them on all summer, waited until it was blatantly obvious they wanted him, then did the Twitter equivalent of brazenly getting off with Real Madrid, right where a humiliated Wenger and everyone else could see them. Now the Gunners have finally moved on by bagging eight goals in two games, he’s saying things like: “It’s true that the electronic board always shows the No.9. Ask Benitez why that is.”

And like the silly lovestruck puppies they are, the Gunners have apparently come scurrying back, or as the Independent repeats are “on alert” – an essentially meaningless phrase that doesn’t say much for current standards at the broadsheet.

Arsenal were also rumoured to have been interested in signing Anthony Martial, but the so-called deadline-day mystery bidder for the Man Utd striker has been revealed by the Mirror, and it’s not the Gunners. It’s Chelsea. The tabloid says the French teenager turned the Blues down in favour of a move to Old Trafford.

Liverpool fans rejoicing in the imminent arrival of Jurgen Klopp might get their buzz killed by the Daily Express, which claims Philippe Coutinho is “happy to sign” for Barcelona. It then lists a load of quotes from Coutinho in which he says nothing of the sort.

And last and most definitely least, the big scoop in today’s Ballymena Times is that Ballymena United have turned down a bid from Crystal Palace for their 16-year-old striker Matthew Shelvin.

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