It’s become a running joke that Arsene Wenger nearly signed all of football’s greatest starlets.
The Frenchman undeniably had an eye for talent, but when it came to convincing them their future lay in North London it wasn’t so easy.
Here are five players the Gunners missed out on during Wenger’s time in charge of the club.
Jadon Sancho
The talented winger is lighting up the Bundesliga and is predicted to earn Borussia Dortmund upwards of £100million when he moves this summer, but there is an alternate universe during which he agrees to a move back to London to join the Gunners.
“I wanted to take him from Man City when he didn’t get the games,” Arsene Wenger revealed last year. “I tried to lure him because he’s from London. I tried to get him to Arsenal. He’s one of the best players of his generation. He can dribble, he has the arrogance.”
Sancho was a devastating force in youth football. A contractual stalemate between himself and City saw him leave the club for just £8million. Entirely how Wenger would have utilised him is unclear. Sancho has benefitted from regular first-team action at Dortmund, and Wenger (and his successors) may have adopted a more patient approach.
N’Golo Kante
This failed move was particularly frustrating given Wenger was often seen to have a vice-like grip on the French market.
What made matters worse was the fact Wenger missed out on Kante twice. First, when he joined Leicester, and then again when he relocated to Chelsea.
While the former Arsenal boss lamented Chelsea’s financial strength as to why he missed out the second time, he was somewhat coy on why the former Caen man never ended up at the Emirates the first time around.
He cost the Foxes £5.5m when he joined, a great price given what he achieved.
Cristiano Ronaldo
When you manage one club for over two decades, you’re bound to have a few regrets, and for Wenger, his biggest is not signing Cristiano Ronaldo.
“I showed him around, and I gave him a shirt. It had his name on the back,” Wenger said in 2008. “But in the end, it was a question of the transfer fee between the two clubs.”
The Portuguese superstar was being chased by a host of top European clubs including Real Madrid and Manchester United. He would go on to play for both, choosing a move to Old Trafford first. Sir Alex Ferguson convinced the player by assuring him that his introduction to the first-team would be gradual.
Arsenal’s refusal to meet the player’s £12million valuation was another stumbling block, but it did allow Wenger a nice ‘what if?’ moment.
“You could imagine at the time what it would have been like to have Thierry Henry and Ronaldo together,” Wenger said. “That would certainly have changed a little bit the history of my stay here as well.”
Luis Suarez
It was one of the more surreal transfer stories from the summer of 2013. Arsenal were interested in Luis Saurez, and they believed the player had a clause in his contract that allowed him to be bought for any fee over £40 million.
Arsenal’s response? Bid that figure, plus one pound. Liverpool were understandably unimpressed with the Gunners’ approach, and John Henry said as much. He tweeted, “What do you think they’re smoking over there at Emirates?”
It later came out that Suarez did not have a release clause in his contract. What he did have was a clause that stated he must be informed of any bid received over £40million.
Wenger has claimed that the Uruguayan wanted to move to the Emirates, but ultimately a deal could not be reached. It all worked out for Suarez, however, as he moved to Barcelona in 2014 and had a trophy-laden career after that.
Lionel Messi
One of the many clever ideas Wenger brought with him to England was snapping up young talent from foreign academies for little to no money. Cesc Fabregas was perhaps the best example of Wenger’s work in this field, and the Spaniard was almost joined by two of his Barcelona teammates.
Fabregas moved to north London in 2003, and Marca later claimed that Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique almost went with him.
“We were in discussions with Barcelona when we bought Fabregas because Messi played [with him],” Wenger said last year. “You can realise sometimes what fantastic youth teams you had before when you’re a club like Barcelona. In the same team: Messi, [Gerard] Pique and Fabregas.
“Pique and Fabregas came to England, Messi stayed in Spain. We were interested in him, but he was untouchable at the time.”
