Arsenal Boss Speaks Out On Failed £90m Deadline Day Move

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has spoken out on the clubs failed attempts to pull off a sensational £90m swoop for Monaco’s Thomas Lemar on deadline day, according to the Mirror.

We were strongly linked with Lemar all summer after Wenger made the French international one of his prime transfer targets but we struggled to agree terms with Monaco.

The Mirror claim that the Ligue 1 champions informed Arsenal on several occasions that Lemar wasn’t for sale after rejecting two formal offers from us earlier in the summer.

Wenger was back on the market for an attacker late in the window after agreeing to sell Alexis Sanchez to Manchester City for around £60m on the proviso that he could secure a top class replacement.

The newspaper says it was Monaco who contacted Arsenal to inform them that Lemar was available for £90m and Arsenal submitted a suitable offer only for the French outfit to stall on the deal.

The Mirror claim that by the time Monaco came back to push through the deal on Thursday afternoon, Lemar felt it was too late for him to make such an important career decision – especially as he was playing for France that evening – so he turned down the move.

Wenger refused to be forced in to buying what he felt would be a second-rate replacement so the Sanchez deal collapsed, much to the frustration of City officials.

The Arsenal boss has now confirmed that Lemar opted to stay at Monaco and defended his decision to keep Sanchez despite the fact he’s in the final year of his contract.

Wenger if quoted as saying by the Express:

“Lemar chose to stay at Monaco. You have to respect what happens on the negotiation side. I know we live in an era of transparency but at some stage, to respect everybody, you have to not talk too much about that.

“Look I cannot tell you everything that happened [with Sanchez] because after that when you decide to let a player of that calibre go, you need to replace him because nobody would understand that you let the player go and when you cannot do it, you keep the player and make a financial sacrifice because what you want, at the end of the day, is to have a team who has a good potential and top quality.

“That means two things: Alexis Sanchez will go, like Mesut Ozil, in the final year of his contract or you think during the season you will find a way to extend the contract or at the end of the season the players go for free.”

It was a hugely complicated situation to try and resolve on deadline day so there is no surprise it all fell through but understandably all parties are playing the blame-game and pointing the fingers at one-another.

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You can understand Lemar’s hesitation to push through such a huge move at the last minute when he had an important World Cup qualifier to think about that evening. The fact is, if City had made their move for Sanchez back in June, I’m sure both deals would have been concluded without issue.