Calciomercato is claiming that Arsenal made a move for Andrea Petagna in the summer and their offer was turned down by Napoli.
Petagna joined Napoli in the January transfer window and the Naples side allowed him to remain on loan at SPAL for the rest of the season before he joined them this summer.
His fine form for SPAL attracted the attention of Mikel Arteta, the report claims.
It says that Arteta identified him as the type of striker that he would want in his team and the Spaniard made a move for him.
However, Arsenal’s bid for him was turned down by the Italians because Napoli’s manager Gennaro Gattuso was keen to work with him.
He is now one of several exciting strikers that are leading the line for the Italian side, while Arsenal didn’t sign any striker in the last transfer window.
This news is quite surprising considering that Arteta has the likes of Eddie Nketiah, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at his disposal at the moment.
If he had signed a new striker, he’d have had to send out one of his current options on loan or sell, otherwise there will have been a serious selection headache for him at the Emirates.
Never mind that for a selection headache, how about sending 7 (mavropanos, Clarke, Ballard, oluwu, medley, Bola, McGuiness) centre backs out on loan, not registering 3 more (sokratis, saliba, dinzeyi) for EL duty and having 4 (luiz, chambers, holding, Mari) out injured at the same time, now that is a selection headache. Out of 16 centre backs we now have only 2 available for Tuesday night and one of those has told the club he wants to leave, what great planning by the club?