JOSE REYES may join Real Madrid on a one-year loan – with Julio Baptista coming to Arsenal on a one-year loan.
Or maybe it's NOT a double loan deal. Maybe it's Reyes for Baptista plus £3 million.
News that Baptista was applying for a Spanish passport TODAY makes the move even more precarious.
Julio Baptista is a big Brazilian who can knock players over in the Spanish League.Could he do the same here?
As Arsene once said, when talking about Manu Petit, "A physical player on one league is not necessarily a physical player in another league."
A year ago Arsene saw Baptista play in the Confederation Cup and met him and offered Seville £13 million. "The Beast" had scored 38 goals in 63 games for Seville.
Then he signed a five-year contract with Real Madrid.
Last season he played mostly on the left side, out of position. He started 31 games and scored eight goals and had 71 shots.
One of his 22 direct free-kicks was a goal. He had 38 headers and scored twice.
Now Fabio Capello says Baptista is not part of his plans, so instead of playing with his friend Jose, the pair could be swapping clubs.
WOULD THIS BE a good deal for Arsenal? Does Baptista really want to be over here? Would he be motivated? Or would he just go through the motions?
The deal would, at least, end the human tragedy of Jose Antonio Reyes.
I feel sorry for Reyes and wish him well. But why did Arsenal sign a kid who is ESN – educationally sub-normal?
He spoke a gypsy dialect until he was 16, when he was taught Spanish by the other players at Seville.
He has been an alien for two and half years. This year he still needed to take an interpreter into a shop in Barnet to rent a video-game. He has been in hell. And Henry never accepted him, which must have wounded the kid deeply.
Reyes is a brave winger who will add dynamism Madrid's left side. He works hard and puts his foot in and can do a job in Capello's newly disciplined unit.
WHEN CLUBS look for footballers to fill a role they look at three or four options, and negotiate with two or three.
Since good players always have a choice, clubs need a No.2 choice. Sometimes it's simple : if one player comes to a club, another can go. If one leaves a club, another can replace him.
But often it's a tangled web of inter-related deals where the relationship between one deal and another is far from obvious to impatient fans.
On Ashley Cole, I hear the deal is NOT dead.
On Tevez and Mascherano, their agents are in London negotiating with three clubs.
Corinthians owner Kia Joorabchian is an Anglo-Iranian who was educated in England.
Joorabchian is a big Arsenal fan and had a box at Highbury.