This is a story that will make some throw their hands up in disappointment, whilst others will agree that Wenger made the right decision, but N’Golo Kante has supposedly revealed that he thought he would sign for Arsenal this summer, instead of Chelsea!
Kante, who was a star in Leicester’s 2015-16 Premier League campaign for the title, recently secured a move to Arsenal’s London rivals Chelsea. The move reportedly cost around £32 million and Kante has become Conte’s second summer signing.
However it could’ve been all so different for the French international, because according to the Metro, Kante thought he would be joining up with Arsene Wenger this summer, rather than Conte at Chelsea. Kante was reportedly told of Arsenal’s interest in him after it was revealed that the former Leciester man had a £20 million release clause in his contract. Now this figure was either untrue due to Chelsea’s £32 million bid, or that the clause expired on the 30th June. It’s likely to be the latter, but Kante was told about Arsenal’s interest prior to the Euro’s and expected a call from Wenger after the completion of the competition.
Arsenal instead of course went on to sign Granit Xhaka, leaving little room for Kante in the Arsenal side and thus opening the door for Chelsea to secure his signature. Kante proved to be a very effective player last season in what was his debut year in the Premier League, but will he be able to live up to his expensive price tag next season?
I think based on the fact that it was already decided that Xhaka would be joining Arsenal, spending another £30 million plus on another midfielder wouldn’t have been the best decision that Wenger could have made. Based on that, I think the fans cannot be too disappointed in Arsene Wenger’s lack of follow up on Kante, even if the player did fancy himself in Red and White.
By AH
It’s useless crying over spilled milk.
We’ve missed the opportunity.
Anyway, as it is… That’s not a priority for Arsenal.
Beside if a french player it has to be Griezmann.
Wake me up please when it happens.
Nope……. We couldn’t have tried harder
besides it was either Xhaka or Kante…
In other news, Mahrez is now valued at £45mil….
Next time if u wanna make an affordable bargain, get ur business done early…
Leicester had the 3 slowest
defenders in the world
Morgan Huth and Drinkwater.
Kante ran all day to cover them.
Arsenal want more than a ventilator.
Xhaka provides more quality for
Arsenals passing game.
Why in the world would we want yet another central midfielder?? We already have Xhaka, Cazorla, Ramsey, Wilshere, Coquelin and Elneny. Thats 6. If we signed Kante we would have 7 central midfielders competing for 2 positions. At what point do any of us start using our common sense? Or maybe you want us to change to a 2-7-1 formation to accommodate all of these CM’s?
2-7-1? What planet are you living on?
We could get rid of Giroud and just go 2-8-0 XD
Very true, what was I thinking!! My predicted best lineup for us next season:
Cech
Gabriel Koscielny
Ozil Wilshere Ramsey Elneny Cazorla Coquelin Xhaka Sanchez
I think this will enable us to use all of our centre mids, we will dominate every team in midfield. Ozil and Sanchez on the wings will give us the extra width. Maybe we should just sell Bellerin and Monreal, as a formation with 2 at the back means we no longer need fullbacks? Just a thought. Otherwise with the aforementioned lineup I can see us easily winning the league, probably with 5-6 games to spare!
I just hope granit xhaka will turn out to be a good buy cos I felt we never needed a flamboyant player in the middle of the park,all we needed was a ball winning midfielder who will work his sucks up for 90minutes shielding the back for.
OT: Wellington silva (23) finally quits Arsenal after 6yrs
stats : zero start for Arsenal, 6 different Loan deals
Bio: One of the most pointless signings Wenger ever made , The superstar that never was, One for the future…..Back to the future!!!
Wenger, The straw that breaks the camels back!
Not every player will make it at Arsenal, I thought that was so obvious that even challenged people like yourself could understand…
Without gambling on some youth from time to time then we do not end up with players like Bellerin.
If we’d signed Kante what would happen to Coquelin and Elneny?
As it is we’ve got pretty decent midfield options – Coquelin, Elneny, Xhaka, Ramsey, Wilshere, Cazorla and Oxlade-Chamberlain at a push.
Not to mention we’ve got a few youth players hoping to get into the first team squad this season.
Given our lack of rotation, what would happen to Coquelin and Elneny is still a valid question. I see Xhaka, Cazorla, Ramsey and Wilshere starting 95% of the games. It’s going to be a very hard season for Coquelin and Elneny.
No, we have enough midfielders. ST, CB, RW. I’d be surprised if one of these are taken care of. And signing Holden doesn’t really count since he’s not going to start. I’m guessing Chambers or him are going on loan too? I’d send out Chambers who badly needs playing time at this point in his career.
OT again: Paddypower is reporting we have completed the signing of Rob holding from bolton for around £2mil
[Acting Like a National League south side…..penny pinching at it’s best] hope hoLding comes good tho…… Another brit
How much did Cashley Cole cost us?
Cesc?
Bellerin?
Oh look, you do not need to spend a record figure on a teenager to get quality.
Huh!……..why is all my comment awaiting moderation………… Eh…….. Did i say something wrong @ Admin
Haha my spam filter has finally worked out how boring you are!!!
ADMIN……what’s all this?
Our business is done….we aren’t trying to sign anyone else. All this other talk is the usual BS put out by Arsenal to make it seem like we are after people. We aren’t.
Remember this time last year when one of the old duffers apparently told a journalist that we still had 70 to 100 million to spend and we would after buying Cech?
All BS of course….but reeled us in as usual.
Every one of our rivals is doing good business….even the Spuds. Our business is done 35 M on Xhaka and a Japanese unknown and a young defender.
There will be no striker…..no winger…..we are done.
So just relax and see what happens…..you never know we might not get hundreds of injuries this season. Yeah right……
Have you forgotten that the year we signed Cech we was recovering from the hangover of spending £100mil the previous year?
Ooops sorry, I guess you wanted to keep that quiet, showing a logical reason for restricted spending doesn’t go well with people who just want to moan about Arsenal.
I hope since we are not interested in making any signings as things stand Wenger is working extra hard on improving Theo, Ox, Mert, Gabriel and also ensuring Jack is covered in wool for the entire season because God knows will need these lads to seriously improve if we are to get something from the upcoming season.
Would have loved Kante at Arsenal but how many of such articles will we right?
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Mhki
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Ibra
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Jassen
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Mane
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Musa
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Pelle
– Should Arsenal have tried harder to sign Umtiti
There, can go on and on with this.
We missed out on Kante, Krychowiak, Schneiderlin, Kondogbia, Vidal
We missed out on Mktharyan, Janssen, Ibrahimovic (twice), Batshuayi, Nolito, Benzemz, Suarez (by not bidding enough)
Story of our Team
Thankfully we got some WC players Cech, Alexis, Ozil, Cazorla, Koscielny
Xhaka, Bellerin, Monreal are nearly there. Excellent players
In terms of DM, we have Cquelin who is very good
I’d like to know how well Bielik has progressed, Because Wenger WILL NOT spend on a out and out DM. He only believes in B2B players. So if we want quality DM we need to look at our youth players
Forgot something in the not bidding enough area.
We tried to get Cazorla 12 months earlier than we got him and we missed out on less than £2mil if I remember correctly. Thank the footballing gods that we got him 12 months later as I like our little magician.
Until Gazidis is either replaced with a man who knows how to get a transfer done or until Gazidis has developed with experience… we are stuck with 2nd rate transfer dealings.
Before people jump on Wengers back about this, if it was Wenger who thought that way then why did he pay over the odds to get Nasri, Nasri has signed a new contract to force us to pay more and Wenger paid it without thought. Gazidis arrived and said Wenger is clueless about player valuations and ever since then we have been submitting low offers for players and penny pinching. Wenger was responsible for transfers after Dein left and before Gazidis arrived, only 2 transferred happened iirc, Nasri and Arshavin. Arshavin was a record buy for us. Both of those buys happened when we had stadium debt…. The excuse that we have been fed by the board of not being able to spend due to stadium debt… Didn’t stop Wenger.
Wenger appears to recognize that a team requires a good player on the ball in the DM pos, if you look at pre gazidis era then we see Wenger had made sure we had quality in those roles.
DMs do not cost as much as top CFs do and history has shown that a good DM could be a fraction of the price of a CF.
1997 Petit cost 2.5mil and played in the DM role for us, very good player for us.
2002 Gilberto Silva cost 4.5mil and a top DM for us.
Gilberto Silva left in 2008.
Oh… what a coincidence, Gazidis arrived in Nov 2008.