swipe right wrote:The amount of nonsense people on this forum talk is unbelievable.
Ibra - came around for a trial as a kid when we had prime Henry, Wiltord and Kanu in the team. There is no way he was ever going to be a first team player that year.
Yaya - did not get a visa
Hazard - we could not pay his 24M transfer value when our record signing was Arshavin at half that.
Gnabry - messed up those two seasons when he was being watched for first team opportunities. His agent chose west brom despite the club being against it, he got injured and put on weight. It was only when he went for the olympics that he blew up at which point he refused to sign a new deal.
Please stop rewriting history to your convenience.
It's not about previous transfer records, it's about using your budget wisely - and we had the budget to bring in Hazard.
Here's a breakdown.
Arsenal made over £70m from sales and ended up using ~£58m to bolster our squad on the following players.
- Needed at the time (CM, CB, LB):
£10.80m → Arteta
£10.17m → Mertesacker
£ 6.30m → Santos
Needed at the time (winger - one sufficed):
£12.42m → Chamberlain
£10.80m → Gervinho
Redundant/mystery signings:
£5.85m → Park
£1.01m → Jenkinson
£900k → Campbell
£675k → Eisfeld
= ~£58m on incoming transfers
Had we gone for quality over quantity and went just with Hazard instead of both Ox/Gervinho, Lille's £24m asking price for Hazard could've been met with ease. His transfer wouldn't even have prevented us from being able to bring in Per, Santos and Arteta.
- £24.00m → Hazard
£10.80m → Arteta
£10.17m → Mertesacker
£06.30m → Santos
= ~£51m on incoming transfers
You're accusing people of rewriting history, sometimes rightfully, but then, by suggesting we couldn't meet Lille's £24m asking price for Hazard, you end up doing it yourself.