Aaron Ramsdale has been one of the signings of the season so far.
After joining from Sheffield United for a fee worth £30million, the Gunners goalkeeper has recorded nine Premier League clean sheets in just 16 games and has pulled off some remarkable saves in that time.
But his dream move to a big club like Arsenal almost never happened because his former club were reluctant to sell him.
Speaking to Ben Foster on The Cycling GK, Ramsdale said: "The numbers which were getting thrown out, there were a couple of times where I lost my head, and it was just like, 'how can someone be saying £40million for me?'
"I was doing the fan thing: relegated, £40m, it doesn’t make sense.
"And there were bids coming in and they were turning them down, and I said, 'Look, you just said…' and then they were...saying, 'If we sell you for this then we have to pay Bournemouth back all in one go now and we only have this amount of profit.'"
United's unwillingness to budge on a transfer fee meant that Ramsdale had to take matters into his own hands.
Things got a little ugly between club and player, as the 23-year-old refused to play in order to force through a transfer to Arsenal.
"So it went on and I got told the day of a game that another bid had come in and I decided to play, so Sheffield United knew that, and then after the game they rejected it.
"Normally if you don’t get a move you are rewarded with a new contract – it’s not set in stone but it’s normal, you saw it at Brentford with Ollie Watkins when he didn’t move – so we said that.
"And someone at the football club, won’t name names, said: 'We didn’t ask him to take less money when he was conceding goals at the start of last year.' And that was when I basically went, 'No, I won’t play against West Brom, do what you want.'
"And then I didn’t train for the first two days, and the manager was like, 'He’ll be alright, he’ll play', and Tuesday came and I said, 'I’m not playing' and then Wednesday the team news comes out that I’m not in the squad and then within 45 minutes, about 10 minutes before kick-off, I was on my way down [to sign for Arsenal]."
Although there will be a part of him that's disappointed with how things ended up in Sheffield, he'll be happy that the transfer eventually happened, and will now look to continue to improve under his new boss, Mikel Arteta.
