Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has once again lifted the lid on how he almost signed the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe.
The Frenchman has been outspoken on this area previously, with the club's unsuccessful attempts to land Ronaldo, Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique well documented.
It was with Ronaldo and Mbappe where the Gunners were closest, with the former travelling to the training ground and wearing an Arsenal shirt before his move to Manchester United.
For Mbappe, Wenger visited the home of the future World Cup winner and was close to signing the striker on a free transfer.
Arsenal fans will be forgiven for wondering what might have been, especially after Wenger's latest comments show just how close the deals were to going ahead.
"He was very close to joining us. The bad luck for us is that Carlos Quieroz joined Manchester United. In a week, he persuaded [Sir Alex] Ferguson to buy Ronaldo and he was quite a good buy at the time," he told BeIN Sports.
"We speak about Ronaldo, he was in our training ground with our shirt. We speak about Mbappe, I was at his home when he was undecided to extend his contract in Monaco and could have come to Arsenal for free.
"Every club is full of history like that, from Milan to Manchester to Arsenal to Chelsea, you have these kinds of stories everywhere.
"In fact, we wanted to make a trio of [Cesc] Fabregas, Messi and Pique. At the time, it's an 87 generation, they played well together. Pique played midfield at the time and went to Manchester United, Fabregas joined us and Messi, Barcelona were clever enough to keep him."
