Serge Gnabry had Arsenal fans dreaming about his return to the club when he refused to sign a new contract with Bayern Munich from the end of last season.
The attacker had been on the books of the Gunners during the start of his professional career, but he blossomed after he moved to Germany.
In 2020, with matches behind closed doors because of the covid pandemic, they won the Champions League and several other trophies. But fans were not in the stands.
Gnabry has now broken Arsenal’s heart by extending his contract with Bayern Munich.
He reveals in an interview with the club’s website that he decided to stay because he wants to win trophies again in front of the fans.
“I want to stay at Bayern, win everything here again and experience something – above all the Champions League again,” the winger told Bayern’s website.
“Celebrating titles, but this time with our fans. It’s something special because I can play here with my friends at the highest level. I certainly wouldn’t experience that at any other club. I want to experience great moments here again – and not somewhere else. The hunger for big titles doesn’t go away.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Bringing Gnabry back to the Emirates was an ambitious move by us and it was going to take a lot.
It is not such a surprise that he has chosen to remain in Germany considering the success he has achieved with Bayern.
We can now turn our attention toward other achievable targets.
An element of bridge-burning there.
One day he’ll realise that winning the German League with Bayern is like winning a donkey derby on a racehorse.
And the CL is becoming close to a Super League anyway with mostly the same teams from each country featuring each year. Anyone else getting bored with it?
CL has generally been a “pay to play” league anyway. Aside from the sharks in small ponds (Bayern for example) many teams need to spend millions upon millions to qualify for the honor.
Fair enough of sorts, people like seeing top clubs go at each other and the quality on display. Not very interesting when Real Madrid squares off against a Burnley or FC Hoffenheim.
I do wish they’d make it just the champions, though. I believe the only reason they don’t is because of leagues like ours, which have at least 2 or 3 clubs (in our case 5 or 6) that have a lot of political clout.
If they made it a balanced playing field (no qualification rounds, just the champions from every league) it would balance out over time, and the money that goes mostly to the English, Spanish and German teams would be more evenly spread, players would be more attracted to CL teams in other counties in Europe (and they’d be able to hang onto more of the players they help to develop themselves!) and the quality of all the leagues would increase.
The way the CL and international competitions (which create similar barriers to less historically relevant sides – in Europe at least!) are organised is corrupt imo
Unfortunately just the Champions would mean teams by coefficient ranked 63rd, 130th or even 200th would qualify. So the Champions of Moldova, the Faroe islands or San marino would qualify but not Barcelona Athletico Dortmund AC Milan Liverpool Chelsea. It is fair based on coefficients. Not fair based on money and country prosperity though. However unless there is a nill transfer fee/10k p/w salary cap for players which I have long favoured then money rules.
Gnabry was one of the 900 players reportedly sighted at Heathrow airport or looking at houses in North London. Fans are in a frenzy as said players have agreed personal terms, are taking their medical on Monday and are just waitng for their respective clubs to finalise the transfer fee. Then said players go some where else or accept a new deal at their old club. Fans scream that the clubs lacks ambition and we missed out on a world beater. The next day the same fans say we were never in for him and any way he is useless and only after the money and we really now must focus on getting player X who will take us to the next level. Of course fans will learn their lesson and never get into transfer frenzy again…. until next summer 🙂
Great analogy FF
It’s great to read the opinions on who we should sign or allow to leave. A couple of weeks ago it was all about how we had missed the boat and what were Arteta and Edu up to?
Transfer deadline tv is usually an exciting watch
It’s all part of the game. Agents market their clients hopefully convincing multiple clubs into a bidding war.
Likely Gnabry never wanted to leave, just a ploy to move the needle and motivate Bayern into offering more favorable terms and conditions.
Fair play, the world continues to spin as always, nothing to see here.
Well, nothing that is a revelation there. Of course he was never coming to Arsenal to not win trophies. His success has come at Bayern and will again.
How has Gnabry ” snubbed Arsenal ” as you sensationally put in your header. Did Arteta or Edu speak to him personally and ask if he would join us, I think not. Another article to get gullible fans to read it, and yes I can see the irony as I am one of them who read it.
Exactly right – I do hope that he did snub us, though, as we should have been testing the waters at least!
There is no concrete evidence that Arsenal ever went for Gnabry. All we had was press speculations
If anything, ‘Reliable Romano’ did state a while ago that the player was definitely not an Arsenal target.
So I can’t understand the talk about “snubbing arsenal”
We were watching the contract situation there was no intention to buy him. We were if anything going tho wait until his contract expired and try to sign him. That would have been sorted next Jan to come the the club next summer. As it goes he’s signed a new deal good on him, he did state if he did come back to England he would only sign for Arsenal as it wouldn’t feel right playing for someone else in the prem.
It’s not a snub, nor have we missed out. We were being sensible and waiting to see how the contract situation played out to potentially get him for free.
We’ve just signed a proven prem player in Zinchenko for 30m +2m in add ons. All whilst United paid 57m with add ons for an unproven 5,9 LCB from a poor league, that was us a few seasons back. Look at all the players who have left Ajax in the last few seasons. Ziyech, De Ligt, Van De Beek, De Jong. They have failed to lift up to the hype and potential since leaving.
Seems like we’ve screwed our heads on at last.