There are very few Arsenal fans that wouldn’t want Antoine Griezmann to come to the Emirates and team up with his good friend Alexandre Lacazette, but it seems that we can stop dreaming about that ever happening now that the French international winger has revealed that he was let down by Le Prof back in 2013, when he was playing for Real Sociedad.
His agent at the time, Eric Olhats, was in regular contact with the top Arsenal scout in France, Gilles Grimandi, who informed him that Wenger was very interested in taking him to the Premier League, and he had decided to ignore any other offers on the table while he waited for Wenger to approach him.
Griezmann himself has now revealed that he was upset that Le Prof didn’t go through with the deal. “I waited,” he said. “I waited, and I kept waiting … when there was no news, Eric called Grimandi, who said that the manager was still interested in me [and] to keep waiting.
“Finally a few hours before the market closed, he let us know Arsenal would not make a move. ‘I don’t like to be told something and for it not to happen. ‘So when Eric told me later that the London club were interested again I told him “Forget it, after the blow they gave us.””
So it looks like Wenger has blown any chance of signing the French star ever again. Just imagine if we had him, Lacazette and Giroud in the team. We would have been truly French then…
Admin
Yep “…. Coz we had the whippet already in place and wenger and a multitude of dumb fans … You know who you are … were incapable of seeing how utterly sh@@@ walcott actually was … That’s about when I knew that AFC under wenger had become a second tier team despite all the bs promises of competing with the european elite attached to a shiny new stadium
Sorry a different topic. I thought Watford has cojones!!! Lol. They are 3 goals down! Where is Troy Deeney by the way?
There u have it.
Another world class player wenger thought against
Deary me
Ahhh 2013… The year we got Yaya Sonogo, Marouane Chamakh, Chu-Young Park, Andre Santos and Ryo Miyaichi… Hmmmmm.
Actually you are not right in most of these players.
Chamakh signed 2010
Santos signed 2011
Chu-Young Park signed 2011
Ryo Miyaichi signed 2011
We did sign Sanogo (and Ozil in) 2013
Oh… Fair enough. Not sure where I got that from.
I remember watching Griezmann many times for Sociedad, and wondered why on earth we didn’t sign him, and how no other top clubs came in for him ahead of Atletico? I am not saying it’s all Wenger’s fault, but I’m sure he played a major part.
But transfers can be strange things at times. Van Der Sar consistently impressed at Fulham, and I couldn’t understand why none of the top clubs were going for him, especially as some of them had GK issues. He spent four years there, before moving to Utd, and I still cannot believe he was there that long, because he was too good them. Walcott at Arsenal for a whopping 12 years come the end of this season…another very strange one, that I cannot explain!
Walcotts 12 year stay(this coming January, actually) is the single biggest scandal where keeping a player is concerned , in my 60yewars of watching Arsenal. Nothing remotely compares in longevity and huge wages wasted for so very many years on a total dud and idler. Remember he kept Diably waiting around on the treatment table never playing for many , many years too. But at least he had talent and some “balls”. Walcott has never managed to grow a pair and never will.
Wenger wanted him but AFC wouldn’t make the move.
Can everyone pay attention to that please?
We read Wenger wanted Lacazette when AFC bought Perez on last day in panic buy.
It is a common theme at AFC, manager wants a top talent and we buy a cheap knockoff instead. ElNeny was a cheap Xhaka knockoff and we all read about how Wenger wanted Xhaka before AFC bought ElNeny and ElNeny refused to leave after AFC accepted a bid for him… not needed but still here, wasn’t wanted in the first place but here he is…
Before people jump on the Wenger hate wagon, think about WHO didn’t go in for him and think about the numerous other players Wenger has wanted but AFC refused to invest.
More likely that Griezemann was 2nd choice behind Ozil and we got Ozil instead. It does mean though that we can forget about Griezemann in the future.
BTW your obsession with Wenger having no say in what players are signed (wrong) and that you have the inside track on what goes on at Arsenal makes you sound quite mad. It is fine to have your mancrush on Mr Wenger but you realy shouldn’t make it quite so obvious.
@Midkemma
I echo what Ivan says, you need to accept the truth…Wenger plays a massive role with everything that has happened at Arsenal, good, and bad. Why on earth do you think we’re making changes, and additions to the backroom staff? It’s because Wenger will be gone soon, and the board have FINALLY realised that an infrastructure needs to be put in place because Wenger’s been doing virtually everything.
Some also say that we didn’t sign certain players because of a lack of funds. Now I agree with this. Not enough money gets released for Wenger to use in the transfer windows, but with that in mind, why hasn’t Wenger been generating more funds from player sales then? We’ve had lots of players to sell that haven’t been good enough, or were refusing to sign new contracts, but Wenger consistently refuses. It’s criminal, the low amount that’s been brought in through player sales over the last four years, especially considering the crazy market place, and in comparison to many other teams.
We still ,have tons of deadwood which Wenger hoards and wates huge wages on altogether. Some people may have noticed, if they are astute,(sarcasm) that I have been trying to get Walcott out of our club for a full decade (out of the 12 wasted years he has been shirking on the pitch and conning huge wages for nothing in return) Yet still this idler remains, uselessly , miles from the first eleven and picking up £110,000 pw. So yes, you have a sound and correct point about deadwood. Any proper manager would have moved this idle weed on many,years ago. We all know that is true. Ask yourself which top manager would have put up with his nonsense for 12 years. NONE!
Hopefully we won’t be missing out on talent like this with Mislintat and Sanllehi onboard now!
I wonder if we don’t sell players like Perez and Campbell because they remain an asset on the balance sheet? It didn’t make sense to me why we didn’t accept the £9m offer in the summer for Perez and then sent him out on loan. We clearly don’t want him so why not pocket the £9m? He’s unlikely to be worth more next summer.
Another World Class player we could have bought cheaply that Wenger stuffed around . Athletico Madrid paid like €35,000,000 for Griezmann now he is worth €85-100,000,000 . Crazy money can’t believe it
Very true
In other words , it once might have been happening but now it definitely is not. What a waste of an article , saying precisely nothing!