James Maddison was linked with a summer move to Arsenal, much to the excitement of Gooners.
The Englishman is one of the best midfielders in England, and who wouldn’t want him on their team?
However, the deal failed to materialise and Football London has now given more insight into what happened.
They claim that Arsenal never officially made an approach for him. However, the Gunners used intermediaries to test if a swap deal involving a few of their players plus cash would work.
But Leicester wanted a straight cash deal worth around £60million. Arsenal was unwilling to pay that, and they moved for Martin Odegaard for half the price instead.
Just Arsenal Opinion
Unless you’re pretending, this wouldn’t come as a surprise to you because it isn’t the first time that Arsenal has missed out on a top target because of money.
That being said, Odegaard hasn’t been a bad signing and Maddison has made a very poor start to this campaign.
The Norwegian is younger (22) than the former Norwich City star (24) and has already proven to be a fit for Mikel Arteta’s system when he spent the second half of last season on loan at the Emirates.
If Odegaard continues to develop his game, he could become a better Premier League player than Maddison and in that way, we won’t regret missing out on the Englishman.