Arsenal hasn’t won anything for about a decade but still go about dealing with other clubs in an arrogant, impetuous manner. It’s probably one of the reasons why despite the several big money bids Arsenal made this window, no club was willing to sell to Arsenal. Arsenal has become like a leper who no one wants to do business with.

For a long time, I have been wondering why Arsenal refuse to pay the asking price of a player. Or at least near the quoted amounts. In 2011, Gary Cahill was much in demand and Arsenal badly needed a defender as well. Arsenal made a move but could only muster a £7 million bid for the coveted player which was promptly (and rightly) described as ‘derisory’ by Bolton Wanderers. The player would eventually be snapped up by Chelsea who were much more serious.

In still the same 2011, Arsenal made a swoop for little-known player, Park Chu-Young. Park was thought to have been on the verge of a medical with Lille, but Arsenal hijacked the deal at the last minute. You might say, “hey, all is fair in love and war”, but the manner Arsenal treated Park was unacceptable. He was promptly dumped into the reserves and there’s still a feeling among fans that Park wasn’t given a chance to prove his worth – especially as he was scoring consistently for his national side at that same time. For Lille, it must have felt like having your Love snatched away from you and then seeing her being reduced to a maid.

Then, to prove we can even outdo our own selves, Arsenal somehow got wind of the “fact” that Suarez had an escape clause of £40M. Never one to miss a bargain, Arsenal promptly made a bid of £40M and A POUND for the services of the danger-man. A pound? The odd, solitary pound offered by Arsenal showed the extent of the stinginess and tight-handedness that has so far prevented the club from making any signings this Summer and indeed any significant signing for the past few years or so. John W. Henry, the Liverpool owner, rightly asked what “they are smoking at the Emirates” in response to that very grotesque bid. I’m still of the belief that had Arsenal offered a more respectful amount of £42M, rather than £40,000,001, Liverpool would have been more open to part with their unhappy player.

After all the earlier bid of £35M didn’t elicit such hostile reaction from Liverpool, or did it? In my view, that £1 was the equivalent of being shown the middle finger. The deal was dead and buried.

In the news at the moment, Arsenal is reported to have bid £10m for Cabaye. The bid was once again described as ‘derisory’ by Newcastle and was promptly rejected. What irks Newcastle so much was that the bid came just hours before they would be lining up for their first game. Why didn’t Arsenal bid for Cabaye much earlier – say in July? Cabaye is our Option K isn’t he? After refusing to aggressively compete for Gustavo and Bender?

Why must we always strike a bargain in our transfers? What do we gain in undervaluing the players of other clubs with our bids other than wasting our time and forcing us into making panic buys? This window, City have strengthened with Navas and Jovetic and neither player broke the bank. And it can be argued that either player would have strengthened us, but I’m sure our haggling would have prevented any move.

At the moment, Arsenal has been quoted £17.2M for Kondogbia by Sevilla. Kondogbia will surely strengthen our midfield and swell up our injury-ravaged squad. Arsenal is interested, Kondogbia probably keen, so what are we going to do? Offer a ‘derisory’ bid of £17.19999M for the player? Crap.

7 thoughts on “Is Arsenal trying to insult every club we deal with?

  1. Hilariou, but yet factual. Wenger and his biard have completely reduced the club to global ridicule with all their antics. God knows where he’ll stair this club to before any drastic change is made.

  2. Hilarious, but yet factual. Wenger and his board have completely reduced the club to global ridicule with all their antics. God knows where he’ll stair this club to before any drastic change is made.

  3. Well put. I have been thinking the same thing for a long time now. He put David Moyes in an awkward position as well a couple of seasons ago when he grabbed Arteta at the very end of the transfer window. I am surprised that any team will do business with him (well, maybe they won’t – as you suggest).

  4. Why would any team bid ABOVE a release clause?
    If you go to buy a mars bar and it says 50p on the sticker you don’t pay a £1 for it

  5. i’ve said for a long time that this is one of the major issues with arsenal. we keep pissing off potential sellers with our stance negotiation, from pissing off barca with the fabregas steal, to schwarzer and fulham, to bolton and cahill(sorry we didnt bid up to 7m for cahill, chelzea got him for 7), to stealing cazorla from malaga,to lille and park, so many. i can boldly say when barca forced the fab matter it was in retaliation. and i can alzo say madrid was already pissed the way we handled the higuain negotiation, and felt comfy teaching us a lesson

  6. Every team manager haggles over stated prices, you would be stupid not to do so. The problem is that the mega-rich clubs (those with billionaire sugar daddies), can afford to pay the asking price, and do. Arsenal can’t. Even with £70+ million, we can’t strengthen all the weak areas of the team. That would require spending over £100 million. Arsenal are forced to either buy cheap players like they have done since the move to the Emirates, or haggle over the more expensive players like they are doing now. Arsenal are not Citeh or Chelski, we can’t afford to be ripped off by teams that inflate a price when a rich club comes calling.
    I guess that any apparent disrespect shown in their dealings with other clubs is a matter of opinion. I don’t see any of the media supporting Arsenals methods over the last 8 years. I don’t remember any criticism of the cheating and fouling that constantly wrecked Arsenals chances of winning the league over the last 8 years. The broken legs and fouling by the cloggers that can’t play football like Arsenal can. The ridicule by supporters of teams that have simply bought their trophies down the corner shop. None of the treatment by pundits, the media and the crap teams in the Premiership have been respectful!! What do they expect back from Arsenal?
    Arsenal have been the victims of bad transfer policy by other clubs, all the tapping up, the tweets from players of other clubs, the bullying from the bigger European clubs. Now its our turn. Other clubs don’t like it? Tough….get used to it! Unsettle the players we want at their current clubs, like as has happened to us. I am tired of Arsenal doing the right thing and getting nowhere. Time for us to play by their rules!

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