I must admit that I thought that Arsene Wenger had got this one piece of Arsenal transfer business wrong in the January window. In fact I thought he got a few things wrong but for today I will concentrate on the situation surrounding our France international Mathieu Debuchy.
The manager had suggested early on in the transfer window that he would not stand in the way if his fellow Frenchman wanted to cut short his career as a Gunner and move on. It was obvious that Debuchy was not at all happy about losing his place as the first choice right back to Hector Bellerin and it was also clear that Wenger understood and was ready to let the defender leave on a permanent or temporary basis.
But as the winter window drew to a close and no deal had been done there was no time left to sort out a permanent transfer and just as it looked certain that Debuchy would go to Bordeaux we started hearing about interest from Manchester United.
We now know that this was true and Debuchy has had a bit of a moan about Wenger blocking the move. The boss has now explained his decision, as reported by The Mirror and declared that he would do the same thing again if it meant not helping out a direct EPL rival.
At the time I thought it might be a good move as Debuchy would be able to help United against our other rivals like Man City, Leicester and Tottenham but would not be able to face Tottenham, but I was wrong. United have a huge defensive injury crisis and if they had Debuchy it might just have helped them overcome it.
So they could have been much closer to us in the league table and they might have won in Denmark last night and been able to rest players for the second leg which comes just days before we go to Old Trafford in the league. On this occasion, at least, did Arsene Know Best?