Boyhood Arsenal fan, Mat Ryan played on loan at the Emirates in the second half of last season.
He joined Arsenal from Brighton as the Gunners struggled with consistency from Bernd Leno.
The German had been preferred to Emi Martinez but he made Arsenal regret the decision after replacing the latter with Alex Runarsson.
Ryan represented a safer pair of hands when he joined as the club’s second choice and Arsenal was expected to snap him up on a permanent transfer.
However, that never happened and he has since moved to Real Sociedad while Arsenal continues to look for a new goalkeeper.
The Gunners have been linked with a move for Sheffield United’s Aaron Ramsdale and Ryan has made some sense of that link by claiming they gave him an impression that they wanted a homegrown goalkeeper.
“We got in contact with them (Arsenal) just before making a decision to see what their stance was and they just gave me feedback that I wasn’t top of their list,” Ryan told Australian media as quoted by The Mirror.
“I think the information that came back was perhaps they’re looking for a homegrown goalkeeper to fill a spot there but that’s as much as I know.
“You can only go about things with what’s dealt in front of you so it was an easy decision at the end of the day.”
Ramsdale would cost Arsenal a lot of money and Martinez’s transfer fee might not be big enough to cover it.