No smoke without fire, I hear you say

For Arsenal, read 1. FC Köln. For Cesc Fábregas, read Lukas Podolski. History repeats itself.

We've been reading and listening to the rumours for months. The struggling, but ambitious club is about to sell/under pressure to sell/might want to make a buck on the international striker who is the only leading light in an under-achieving team.

The Bundesliga club in Cologne looks set to sell Podolski at last, if the Daily Mail are to be believed. (A very conscious choice of phrase, I assure you.)

A transfer in the summer is reportedly agreed now, for a transfer fee of £10.9m, or €13m. According to the Daily Mirror, a relegation for 1. FC Köln would mean losing Podolski for €6m - not an ideal scenario. Podolski will join Arsenal on a four-year, £100k p/w contract.

The details in the report can be seen as making it more credible. The fact that German tabloid Bild also report the transfer tonight may excite us as well. (Under the headline "Köln gibt auf! Poldi zu Arsenal")

But let's wait for any official confirmation before buying all the expensive German beer, eh?

And spare a thought for the struggling club where their hometown star look set to leave. Again. Probably prompted by his team's consistent un-winning ways. Is it good karma or bad karma?

And lest we forget, any credibility of any story is weakened by the insistence that Mario Götze is the next German international on his way...