It’s never nice to miss out on a transfer target, but what’s worse is when you find out that a player who went on to excel elsewhere almost signed for your club.
For Arsenal fans, there are a lot of cases of “what could have been?” as some of the best players in the world from the current era, and previous eras, have come very, very close to joining the North London side.
Of course, Gunners fans have been on the flip side of this too. For example, Alexis Sanchez was a major target for Liverpool before he decided to turn down a move to Merseyside to join Arsene Wenger’s side from Spanish giants Barcelona.
We’ve taken a look at five players who went on to become superstars elsewhere who could have been wearing the famous red and white shirt of Arsenal if things would have worked out slightly differently:
Luis Suarez
Before moving to Barcelona, Arsenal bid £40,000,001 for Suarez, thinking it would trigger a release clause.
Liverpool refused to sell the Uruguayan to Arsenal and he eventually stayed at Anfield for a further season before moving to Spain.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Before his move to Manchester United, Arsenal thought they had a deal in place to sign Cristiano Ronaldo.
“[Cristiano] was very close to coming here. He has a number nine shirt with Ronaldo on the back from Arsenal Football Club. What happened was that Carlos Queiroz went to Manchester United and they snapped him away from us because he knew him from Sporting.”
Vincent Kompany
Back in 2014, Kompany’s agent revealed that he met with Wenger about the possibility of the Belgian moving to Arsenal.
Kompany apparently rejected the chance as he wanted to be guaranteed first team football.
Angel Di Maria
Before he was a star at Benfica and Real Madrid , Di Maria was a transfer target for Arsenal.
However, as Wenger explained, a move to bring him to North London collapsed as the club couldn’t get a work permit for him.
“We had identified Di María when he was 17. We wanted him to come here. But he goes to Portugal and from Portugal he goes to Spain. Why? Because he could not get a work permit.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Back in 2012, Zlatan revealed to the Telegraph that he almost made a switch from AC Milan to Arsenal when he was still a teenager.
He said:
“Arsene gave me the famous red and white jersey – the No 9 shirt with Ibrahimovic on it and I was so pleased I even posed for a picture wearing it. It was a fantastic moment for me. Arsenal had a great team then and here was an Arsenal shirt made just for me. So then I waited for him to convince me that I should join Arsenal. But he didn’t even try. He never actually made me a serious offer, it was more, ‘I want to see how good you are, what kind of player you are. Have a trial’.I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘No way, Zlatan doesn’t do auditions’. I thought ‘You either know me or you don’t and if you don’t know me you can’t really want me’.”