Arsenal may have acquired Alexandre Lacazette and Saed Kolasinac in this summers transfer window, but we do seem to be lagging behind our rivals for the Premier League title, and one of our biggest problems is the danger of losing some of our biggest stars who only have one year remaining on their contracts, including Alexis Sanchez and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Le Prof believes that this is because other clubs, or the players agents, are trying to broker deals without the permission of Arsenal. This has happened numerous times over the years and probably our most famous case of ‘tapping up’ was when Barcelona made a concerted campaign to get Cesc Fabregas to return to his hometown. And it looks like it has happened again this season with Alexis and the Ox. Wenger is very concerned about this but insists that it is not something that the Gunners would do out of respect for the player’s present clubs.
“If you have top players you cannot stop it from happening. It’s frustrating but you’ve got to fight against it,” Le Prof said.
“Honestly, it is a problem, I don’t deny that. But is there a realistic way to fight against it? That’s the question that I ask.
“We’ve fought against this for 20 years but it still happens. How can you check when an agent meets a director from another club or which player speaks to who?
“It happens every day. I don’t know what we need to do really because no-one has found the right solution.
“We are respectful with the clubs. We ask them what they want to do, and if they don’t want to sell then we don’t insist. For some, that is where the difference is.”
So the question needs to be asked; If all the other top clubs are doing it to our players, why doesn’t Arsenal do the same thing? Why should we let them poach our players and persuade them to force their way out of the club, but we don’t do the same to their players? Nowadays football is a multi-billion pound business and most clubs are run on a dog-eat-dog basis. So why not Arsenal?
Darren N