Big bucks agent Mino Raiola claims that Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is scared to spend big money.
The Gunners spent around £89 Million to bring in four players this summer, including £30 Million+ deals to sign Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka.
Manchester United on the other spend the same amount of money on only one of their targets, breaking the World Record fee for a football player.
Raiola was the man to thrash out that world record fee, and no doubt collect a World Record fee for an agent also, and he has now moved to claim that the Gunners were afraid to work out such a deal.
He said: ‘It’s not just a case of spending the money.
‘It’s shouldering the responsibility of spending that money and saying, ‘yes, this is my man’.
‘Arsenal have the money but do they have the ba***?
‘I respect Arsene Wenger. He has a philosophy that says these figures don’t match what I want to do, so that’s OK. Real Madrid?
‘The will of Zinedine Zidane was strong but we were not sure it was the will of the club.’
We were linked with a move to sign the French international, but it is difficult to justify such huge spending.
We did sign striker Lucas Perez however, in a £17.5 Million deal, but were also linked with a number of other stars for the role, all costing more than the Spaniard.
Islam Slimani was strongly linked with a switch as well as Alexandre Lacazette, and the former instead joined Leicester City, and has hit the ground running.
Slimani bagged two goals in his opening match-up, having cost the Foxes around £30 Million, while our striker is yet to bag a goal, or even impress in our striker role.
Our other named target Lacazette has also been in staggering form so far this season, scoring six goals in the opening four matches, and I can’t help but thing that Arsene Wenger was too stringent in our bid to add a striker.
Was Lucas bought because he was the cheaper option? Do we believe Wenger simply took the less risky option?
Pat J