West Ham continue to talk to Marseille over the sale of Dimitri Payet, but that isn’t stopping him being linked with other clubs.
The Frenchman has been banished from Slaven Bilic’s training after going on strike, with all the indications at present that a move back to Ligue 1 is imminent.
Yet, Arsene Wenger is clearly aware of rumours that Arsenal could make a late bid to keep him in the Premier League.
It seems unlikely that West Ham would sell to another English club regardless, but especially as Payet has expressed a wish to return to France for family reasons.
And Wenger has confirmed that no such deal is going to happen, not least because he has so many creative midfielders already.
“I rate Payet but I don’t need Payet because we have so many creative players,” he told reporters.
“We have many players who can play in this position.”
The Gunners’ main focus is the weekend’s game against Burnley, and they don’t seem to be taking a particularly active interest in the transfer market.
As far as they are monitoring it at all, it is to stop other clubs from tempting Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil away from the Emirates, but Wenger is at least consistent in his view that he would like to end the season with largely the squad he started with.
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