Bacary Sagna claims that Hector Bellerin will be looking forward to a new challenge, and that an exit from Arsenal is on the cards.
The French former defender spent seven years in North London before leaving to join Manchester City in 2014, and he believes he understands Bellerin.
Sagna claims that the Spanish full-back will be wanting a fresh challenge after a number of years as the club’s first choice at right-back.
“Hector has been there for years,” Sagna told Goal. “He started playing not long after I left, so he has been in the team for like six years.
“And a bit like I felt, he probably feels that he wants to challenge himself because he has been there for a long time.
“It’s nothing to do with the club, nothing to do with winning cups or whatever. At some point if you want to progress, in my mind you need to go somewhere and challenge yourself and start from zero again. This is how I felt.
“Arsenal was my club and is still my beloved club, but after seven years I had the feeling that because I was part of the house, even when I didn’t deserve to play, I would have played.
“It’s quite tricky as a player. Hector’s still young, he still has five good years to play at the top level and he can do it. So, if he left now, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Bellerin arrived on the scene with a bang, but his progress did seem to slow in recent seasons, and I can’t help but believe that the Spaniard would benefit from a new challenge.
Arsenal and Hector’s separation seems inevitable at some point, and I believe that both parties would benefit from freshening things up.
Will this be Bellerin’s last season at Arsenal?
Patrick
There’s has much chance of him being here next season as there is Arteta
I disagree, I think Bellerin will be leaving……..😊
@ Dan.Wrong.Arteta will be here next season.No problem.As for Bell end.He’s gone.If they or whoever offer £ 25 million plus.Bite their hand off & leg it out the door with the dosh,Sharpish.
I didn’t say Arteta would gone next season though
Nice come back Dan kit.😊
Rather a rude alliteration of Bellerin’s name and not really necessary Uwot.
I am nearly certain the club will be doing all they can to get Bellerin sold this summer and so they should.
Just as they should have done many years ago with this bad player, whom they should never have signed, for the simple reason that he is a disastrously bad defender and always has been.
To move on this bad but regularly playing man(til almost right now) will greatly improve our defensive reliability.
I do not however think that any incoming fee will be anywhere near what we could have got, had we sensibly sold him a long time ago.
The time is right for him to move on, but wrong in terms of our obtaining a decent transfer fee.Trade ins and loans will be a feature of the next 1/2 transfer windows until the impact of the Pandemic on finances eases.
Don’t like the framing of him needing a new challenge, as though he’s been a success here and has nothing to prove.
I’ve always been disappointed with Bellerin because I do believe there was great potential there, just don’t think he has the right mentality. Similar to Walcott – wouldn’t say either were complete failures but they never seemed to improve much after the age of 21, which suggests complacency. Part of that must come down to Arsenal and the way these players were handled.
I really think we should proactively embrace the new world order, which will likely include trades/swap deals, then specifically target a couple of teams with managerial instability and/or in a bit of a fire-sale mode, who have players we might covet in positions of “needs”…the lack of transfer fees will likewise allow us to negotiate a more reasonable wage for the incoming players, unlike in the past when we’ve actually overpaid players who came in on a “free” transfer