Monaco confirm that Lemar wanted Arsenal transfer to go through

Monaco chief Vadim Vasilyev has claimed that Thomas Lemar did want to leave the club for Arsenal or Liverpool, before he convinced him to stay.

Les Rouges et Blancs went on a selling spree this summer, after a thoroughly impressive season in which they dominated the French division, as well as reaching the semi-final of the Champions League competition.

A number of clubs have come in for their key players of the previous campaign, and Monaco have allowed many of them to leave, including Kylian Mbappe, Benjamin Mendy, Thiemioue Bakayoko and Bernardo Silva among those to be sold.

Thomas Lemar was the subject of a number of bids supposedly by Arsenal and Liverpool, and the former had a late offer accepted by his club, before the French international decided he wished to stay put instead.

Vasilyev has now revealed that the player did in fact want to move to one of Arsenal or Liverpool, until he convinced him that he should stay.

“It was not easy. Thomas wanted to go to Arsenal and to Liverpool, but we had discussions and we took a communal decision so that he could stay here,” he said.

“He is a very important player for us.

“We could not have sold him, it would have affected the entire team and the individuals.”

Strange to insist that they couldn’t have sold him after accepting our offer, but this must simply be an afterthought.

The 21 year-old is set for a bright future in the game, already making his mark for his country, and Arsene Wenger has already confirmed that he will be looking to persuade the wonderkid to join us in one of the coming windows.

Is Lemar worth a British Record transfer fee? Will we beat Liverpool to his signature come January?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal Lemar Liverpool Monaco

23 Comments

  1. He didn’t produce anything special when he played as a left winger in several matches for Monaco and France. But he showed good control, skills, movements, vision and work rate when he played as a central midfielder for France in the World Cup qualifying matches.

    Arsenal can rectify their central midfield problem by getting a versatile and skillful player like him, but I don’t think he is worth 100 millions. I am sure there are many talented central midfielder that are not popular yet, like what Kante when he was bought by Leicester City for merely 5.6 millions.

    I hope Wenger keep his promise to return for him. Otherwise there are other central midfielders available, such as Jean Seri and Sergi Roberto.

    1. Shhhh, keep it out
      Dont let wenger know that lemar also can play as middefield, or he will
      play out position like many previous players before…

  2. I’m sure if had been Real Madrid, PSG, Barcelona, or Bayern Munich the deal may have, shall we say, moved a long a little quicker and resulted in the signing.

    Why would lemar want to play for Arsenal right now.?

    We are 16th in the league,
    We play europa Cup not champions league,
    Our best players want to leave,
    Our manager is a relative failure (unless we are counting FA cups),
    And the owner is negligent and shows no ambition.

    No wonder it never happened.

    1. He would join Arsenal if they manage to be unbeaten and sit on the top of the league in January. That would be very difficult to achieve since Arsenal are in dire situation.

      But you would never know what will happen in football. Like what happened to Leicester City in 2015-16 season and Chelsea after they suffered a bad start…

  3. he has said he wants to go to Liverpool….

    Klopp has pull not were as Wenger doesnt inspire anyone. Time to change the Manager

  4. …rather than speculate over lemar coming to us in january we need to get some of the monaco coaching staff on side they’d do a better job than what we currently have in place – they at least made a go of their domestic league and secured a CL semi final for their fans and bringing them in would prove to be much cheaper solution than deluding ourselves bout attracting any more quality players beyond those we already have.

    1. That’s not a bad idea . I remember how they kicked us out of the group 16 of the Champions league. Geoffrey Kondogbia destroyed our midfield along with sinking us with a 30 yard screamer to top of the match. That team was weaker than the team that won Ligue 1 this year . Every year despite loosing key players they manage to improve as well as source players who are an upgrade to the ones they lost. Monaco’s coaching staff and scouts are sorely needed at Arsenal

  5. Looks like the Monaco chief is hyping up his Player ahead of the January window . Probably trying to get Man Utd interested in Lemar so they can demand 200 million for him . Greedy bunch of plonkers

  6. I don’t think any club can be as unprofessional as Arsenal FC at the moment. Lemar to Arsenal saga as it happened.
    1. Lemar was our #1 target after we secured Lacazette.
    2. Arsenal bid 40 million and 50 million which was turned down as Monaco were looking at 70million and due to this inflated transfer market.
    3. Lemar wanted to leave Monaco and Arsenal were in constant talks with Lemar.
    4. Our chief transfer negotiator was on a 2 week holiday, so was wenger and we stopped having contact with Lemar.
    5. He wanted liverpool move since Liverpool showed more interest in him in the last week more than Arsenal have shown in this entire window, and Liverpool were willing to pay what Monaco were looking for.
    6. Liverpool dropped their interest on Lemar after signing chamberlain.
    7.(This is where it gets really hilarious) 4 hours left in the transfer window and 2 hours before Lemar would start in an important world cup qualifier we bid for him and he flat out says “I need more time”
    In other words “F*** you arsene I don’t want to play for you”

  7. I am surprised that more people haven’t yet realised that the last minute Lemar bid was purely a publicity stunt. It’s just more propaganda. They knew they weren’t getting him. What makes me laugh is that ALL managers have their targets, then a backup target, then maybe even a third option, so why didn’t Wenger sign anyone after losing out on Lemar? I am surprised he hasn’t even been asked about this.

    1. ive already said this, why wait until the last minute and then the lad was playing. Only a fool would fall for this again

  8. Arsenal cannot for ONCE be faulted with regards to the Lemar deal . Fee was initially agreed at 30 million , then when Chelsea or City leaked that Sanchez is leaving to City for between 40 – 60million they rose the fee , agreed at 40 million then they asked for 55 million which Arsenal agreed to again. Monaco then say they want 65million for him . From a fee agreed to of 30million in June to 65 million, no self respectable person will allow themselves to be ripped of hence Arsenal pulled out . When the deal was agreed at 92million then Lemar says no as he was messed about all summer . Go check The Clock End Talk blog by the Football Mole , the story is up regarding the whole transfer debacle as well as the fights during the Liverpool match

  9. Unrelated but……

    England are blooming dreadful so slow and infrequent that they can strong any one touch football together!
    Lots of good players but don’t play as a team, don’t seem to believe or have much fight.
    Hang sounds familiar!

    Compare this c*ap to Spain and the magician Isco the other night. I mean how often in a competitive match could you get to nut meg a player of verattis quality.

  10. Wenger and the board are just fooling everyone. 92m bid for lemar was just to make things up and fool the fans.

  11. If he really wanted to play for Liverpool and Arsenal it would have been been difficult to convince him to stay. There is a red herring here.

  12. Keep this negative thinking by the media and you would have no Arsenal football club left support your club through bad times and good times it’s the players to play football not the manager

  13. I really think these Lemar debacle was a complete hoax. It was primed to fail before it started. Wenger was only playing pranks as usual with the emotions of Arsenal faithful. He had his plans, shrewd as ever, wanted one man mainly and got Lacazette. He is quite methodical, very predictable and he never ceases to amaze me. He wanted Arsenal bloggers to be busy with speculations,while the time tinkers.£92m for Lemar? I wish that money was given to Arsene to leave Arsenal FC

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