Alex Iwobi is one of Arsenal’s successful academy graduates doing well at another Premier League club, but the Nigerian could have remained at the Emirates.
He moved to Everton in 2019 after breaking into the Arsenal first team in 2015 and remaining in the squad for four years.
After the Europa League final in 2019, Unai Emery assured him he was a part of the plan for the next season.
However, when Nicolas Pepe arrived, it became clear someone had to leave the Emirates.
Everton tabled a bid that was too good to turn down and Arsenal told the Nigerian about it.
Iwobi explains his exit via The Beautiful Game podcast:
‘[Arsenal] said, “We’ve received a bid for you, it’s a high bid, we’re not going to get this money from anywhere else”.
‘It was a nudge, “it’s a winger as well, that’s probably going to play in your position. It’s up to you”.
‘They’ve given me that, and Everton’s a club that’s also a very big club that wants me. I want a new challenge, so why not pursue it?’
Just Arsenal Opinion
We all expected Pepe to set the Emirates on fire, so we can understand when the club sold Iwobi.
However, in hindsight, it probably was the wrong decision and we should have kept the Nigerian who is one of our own.
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The exit of Alex Iwobi was a Shock to me. We sold our own because of Pepe that we thought will light up EPL unfortunately he failed.
Surely the WHOLE truth is that neither Pepe nor IWOBI ARE REMOTELY GOOD ENOUGH TO HAVE BEEN ANY REAL USE TO US!
Pepe is widely accepted as being a huge and costly mistake, courtesy of the shady SANLLEHI, while Iwobi is a real tryer and a good man, but was and is extremely average and no use to US at all.
One of our most sensible sales in recent times.
Iwobi is very good in a more withdrawn role, as he often plays for Everton now – he’s strong and fast and his close control is excellent – his problem was always finishing chances. I think he could have made a career at arsenal as a squad player at least, but understand our selling him when we did. It was a lot of money. His apparent replacement, though a far better finisher, was no improvement unfortunately.
“His apparent replacement”? Who do you suppose that to be ? Not Nkeyah surely, as he is miles better in every way.
Nketiah!
I don’t think Nketiah is better in every way – I remember iwobi being our best player in some high level games, largely because his close control was so good, but Eddie is certainly a better striker and I believe he has a fantastic attitude that will enable him to keep improving
Perhaps you meant PEPE though, another useless player! At least we got good money for IWOBI, in fact we stitched up Everton for silly money, as events have shown
Iwobi better than viera easy
Yes, I meant Pepe (that’s what the article was suggesting, sort of)
Iwobi has been good for Everton since they started playing him centrally, I think. But yes, it was a lot of money we got from them. To be honest, it’s more the fact we’re usually so bad at selling that makes it look like silly money – on any other occasion, we’d have sold iwobi for 5m, whereas I’m sure a team like Chelsea would have got 35m for iwobi considering he’d player a lot for us, including in the CL..