Arsene Wenger sheds more light on missing out on Cristiano Ronaldo

As a manager for more than 20 years, Arsene Wenger is bound to have missed out on the signing of some players. However, the Frenchman was still able to make Arsenal a top side again when he became their manager in the 90s.

He built solid teams and he famously led his side to the 2003/2004 Premier League title, which they won unbeaten.

While he was able to sign the likes of Thiery Henry and Patrick Vieira, he also missed out on the signing of a certain Lionel Messi.

Cristiano Ronaldo is another player that the Frenchman missed out on signing and he recently gave more details into how he came very close to signing the former Real Madrid attacker.

Speaking to The Guardian he revealed that he did miss out on signing several players when he was Arsenal’s manager, but Ronaldo is probably the closest.

He claimed that they had an agreement with Sporting Lisbon, but Carlos Queiroz became a coach at Manchester United and the Red Devils signed the Portuguese superstar.

Wenger said: “Oof! I would say there is not one player, there are 50 [I regret not signing]!”

“On the other hand, maybe the closest was Cristiano Ronaldo, when he signed for Man United.

“We had an agreement with Sporting and Man United took Carlos Queiroz as assistant coach, and they just outbid us quickly and took Ronaldo. But we had an agreement basically.

“He had the shirt of Arsenal, I had lunch with him and his mother at the training ground!

“It’s one example but there were so many. The history of a big club is full of missed great players!”

Tags Arsene Wenger Ronaldo

4 Comments

  1. What a coincidence than that he missed out on Ronaldo AND missed out on signing ANY top class CB since Sol Campbell, save only Koscielny, who was in truth a decent player but nowhere near the standard of Cambell, Adams, Bould etc, none of whom cost Wenger a penny in transfer fees.
    He also missed out for a full decade in signing a proper replacement for Gilberto, (since we are discussing who he missed signing)!

  2. Why is he torturing us with this ? I know the questions are constantly put to him but come on stop reminding us of what could have been lol.

  3. I guess the reason he keeps reminding us ArsenalWay, is because some of our fans have and still don’t admit to the fact that The Arsenal have always been a club that would/could be outbid purely by those clubs with more money.

    It’s always so easy for fans to say “we should have bought this player” and “why didn’t we go for that player?” when they have no clue or insight into what the club is actually doing, with regards to transfers.
    Only now, with AW able to shed light on some of the transfer dealings, can we get an insight into what went on – and yet, here we have fans telling all and sundry what should have been done and what wasn’t done, with no knowledge of what has actually happened.
    The Ronaldo story is a classic example of this, in my opinion.

    It’s only now becoming clear that we were trying to buy some top players….and let’s not forget the Mata’s of this world, who we did know about, but we were gazumped by the lure of more money.
    If The Arsenal had bought every player mentioned on here by the fans and the media, we could have a PL of our own!!!

    What we should all remember, is the fact that, even with those clubs in Europe, who had owners prepared to spend limitless money for success, The Arsenal had twenty years of being at the top table and with no defence it seems!!!

    How did we do it I ask once again???

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