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Romainan International ‘Near’ Arsenal Switch, According To Agent

By mac14 on August 6, 2013

Romanian international striker Ciprian Marica is close to making a surprise switch to Arsenal, according to the players agent.

The 27-year-old was released by Schalke at the end of last season when his contract expired so he’s now a free agent and looking to find a new club. That shouldn’t be too difficult for a player who’s lead the line for clubs such as Shakhtar Donetsk, Stuttgart and Schalke during his career, but is he ‘Arsenal class’?

According to his agent, Ioan Becali, it seems Arsene Wenger must think so as he’s been quoted in the Romanian press as claiming the Marcia is ‘near’ to making a move to the Emirates:

“It is near Arsenal, we’ll see this week. Marica is a very good striker, Romania’s national player who has Western big football experience. It’s normal to be in big clubs view, the more since remained free after he signed the contract with Schalke 04.” Becali is quoted as saying HotNews

While we’ve been linked with the likes of Gonzalo Higuain, Wayne Rooney and of course, Luis Suarez, this summer, it would be something of an anti-climax if we ended up with Marcia as our ‘big-name’ striker this summer. Not even Arsene would be stupid enough to do that to the fans after all the talks of £70m ‘warchests’, would he?!

Marica does have some pedigree though. He’s racked up over 60 caps and scored 21 goals for Romania, so he must have something about him. With Chamakh and Gervinho gone and hopefully Bendtner soon to follow, we’re desperately short of strikers so if Marcia does make a move to Arsenal, I’d have no problem with it if he was coming here as 3rd or 4th choice.

In all likelihood though, his agent is probably using Arsenal’s name to generate interest in his client, so I wouldn’t be getting too excited about this one just yet.

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How disappointed would you be if the only other striker we sign was Marica?