Chamkah to grease move for Giroud

Sport is one of the few walks of life where employers can trade actual real life people for other real life people. I mean, you can’t walk down to your favourite restaurant and offer up your younger sibling (and say, £100) in exchange for your favourite cook. But in football, offer up a player and some cash for another player and a deal can be done.

This is the tactic Arsene Wenger is planning to use in his hunt (not a literal hunt, human hunting is especially frowned upon on the continent) for Montpellier striker Oliver Giroud with Wenger prepared to offer Marouanhe Chamakh plus cash in exchange.

Today The Metro quotes French newspaper RMC that Wenger is prepared to offer £6m plus Chamkah for Giroud when £6m and a poke in the eye with a great, big, dirty stick might represent better value for the French club.

Giroud, who scored 21 goals in 36 games in Montpellier’s historic title winning season in Ligue Un, has courted attention from Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle and Bayern Munich in recent months, is contracted to the club until 2014 and has a £12.8m buy-out clause in his contract.

However, Wenger is hoping to offer up the unsettled Chamakh as a makeweight in the deal. Montpellier are interested in the striker but think they can pick up him for as little as £3m and so are not interested in only £6m in cash from Arsenal for Giroud.

However, Giroud, who is expected to leave the club this summer anyway, has advised his agent to wait until after Euro 2012 to finalise a deal as a successful tournament may help the player’s pulling power and entice further interest from top European clubs.

Dan Whiteway

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