Arsenal had long been linked with a move for Donny van de Beek.
The Dutchman joined Manchester United when he finally moved to the Premier League.
He struggled to play regularly at Old Trafford and he has since left United for Everton on loan for the rest of this season.
He has done well in the few minutes he has played for the Toffees so far and has justified why he needed to play more often.
He could have been turning out for Arsenal at the Emirates now if the Gunners had their way in the last transfer window.
The Sun claims Arsenal tried to sign him again in the winter market.
However, he rejected a temporary move to the Emirates and joined Frank Lampard’s struggling side on Merseyside instead.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Considering that we wanted to sign Arthur Melo from Juventus it is not a surprise that this has come to light.
Arsenal has always been linked with a move for the former Ajax man, but it seems he turned them down before they targeted Arthur.
Now that he is doing well at Everton, it’s probably our loss. However, if our current options do well in this second half of the season, we would have no reason to wish we had signed VDB.
if this is true, and that’s a big if, it’s not a good look for us, especially when it comes to the difficulties this management team will face when it comes to recruiting those players who can actually take this little experiment to the next logical level…imagine if several midfielders wanted nothing to do with our club simply because of MA’s seeming unwillingness to opt for tactics that didn’t include both Xhaka and Ode in the starting 11, so they feared that they might not receive significant minutes, which was why they were on the move in the first place
I can’t think of any other reasons why he turned us down,it surely had something to do with playing time or position/tactics.
It seems to me that Van de Beek probably turned down arsenal because he did not believe he was good enough to get the first team minutes that he would get at Everton, and of course he wants minutes in order to increase his chances of playing for the Netherlands in the world cup. I don’t see it as a slight on artetas tactics but rather a belief that he isn’t better than the midfielders that we already have. In addition I think fairfan is correct in saying that man u would not have sanctioned the transfer which would strengthen a direct rival
Silly. Of course DVB wanted to join Arsenal.
However parent club United is not going to strengthen a direct rival for 4th place.
Like Martial went to Spain not Spurs or Arsenal who would have been very interested in a loan.
Of course DVB would have preferred Arsenal and stick it up Utd by beating them to a CL place.
DVB would not have been allowed to join us. Does anyone seriously think Man U would allow a rival for top 4 taking one of their players on loan ? Everton are in the relegation zone, that’s why he was allowed to go there. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously misguided.
good point Declan…that said, I believe my underlying point regarding playing time concerns was apropos when discussing other potential midfield targets, loan or otherwise…of course, I was skeptical about this story, as I expressed above, but it did raise some other obvious recruitment issues, which will hopefully be resolved come the summer, once Xhaka is finally sold on and a more offensive-minded tactical scheme is in the offing
The issue is simple: he felt that he won’t have the opportunity to break into the starting XI.
And we had enough with the trash from the so called big ones.
Sylvester, Welbeck, Mkhitaryan, Gallas, Chek, Luiz, Willian all erratic players, better stay clear. If they were good enough for their clubs, i.e. a top top club, they would not be on the look out for another top club. Makes sense to scout and hire hungry and energetic players from the lower clubs who would prove a point to all doubters. Like Mikel has resolved our decade long issues – GK, Full backs, wing backs. etc.