Have Arsenal blundered by releasing top La Liga hitman?
We are not privy to all the details of the deal between Arsenal and La Liga club Real Sociedad, but the bottom line is that the Spanish side now have full rights to the Mexican striker Carlos Vela, according to a report in The Express. We originally sold him to Sociedad for around £3 million last summer, after he spent a successful season on loan in San Sebastian, but Arsene Wenger cleverly included a buy back clause.
Why did the Frenchman do that unless he thought that Vela had plenty of potential and could become a top class striker? Which is what happened, because apart from the beings from another planet that are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Vela was right up there among the top La Liga hitmen.
There have been reports that the Gunners may have received an additional £8 million in order to waive our rights to Vela, which sounds nice and would just about cover the cost of signing Loic Remy from QPR, but then I have also seen reports in the Spanish media that value the former Gunner at around £20 million.
So have Arsenal just thrown away £7 million, or what’s worse, have we just passed on the chance to sign a top quality striker that is improving all the time? If Vela goes and hits around 30 goals for Sociedad this season, I guess we will have our answer. Was it a blunder by the Prof?
Hmmm, not quite sure what the prof can do if Vela doesn’t want to come back to London (haven’t seen many reports from agent or player saying he was desperate to come back here).
Not sure why you want to sell this story as some sort of Wenger ‘blunder’?
Surely other good stories out there
I fear the Vela situation is more proof that Wenger will not be spending heavily enough to make Arsenal genuine PL contenders.
My maths is crap compared to some financial wizards, but as far as I can make out we have received circa £12m-£13m for a player, on whom we could get £16m-£17m profit!
Err does this suggest the extra money isn’t desperately needed as there is no intention to spend it anyway?