Arsenal have been blessed with some unbelievable gamers and legends over time, from the likes of Tony Adams and Ian Wright to Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira.
Nonetheless, for each icon of the sport who donned the purple and white of the Gunners, it looks like they’ve supposedly missed out on six others.
Tales about Arsène Wenger missing out on Kylian Mbappé, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and even Cristiano Ronaldo are all too acquainted to the followers.
Nonetheless, one other Premier League famous person was as soon as on the North Londoners’ wishlist in 2012, however they ended up with Lukas Podolski.
Podolski’s Arsenal profession
In April 2012, it was announced that Arsenal had secured the companies of German worldwide Podolski for a payment mentioned to have been just £10.9m the month earlier than.
The previous Bayern Munich star moved to North London from Koln that summer time, and whereas his stint with the membership wasn’t essentially the most illustrious, he grew to become one thing of a cult hero for his aggressive model of play and thunderous left peg.
In all, the Gliwice-born dynamo would make 82 appearances under Wenger, wherein he’d rating 31 objectives, present 15 assists, and win an FA Cup earlier than becoming a member of Italian giants Inter Milan on a six-month loan in January 2015 after which sealing a everlasting transfer to Galatasaray the following summer for around £1.8m.
The following 9 years noticed the supremely gifted attacker win leagues in Turkey with Gala and Japan with Vissel Kobe earlier than becoming a member of Polish side Gornik Zabrze in July 2021, the place he’s nonetheless enjoying right now.
General, whereas Podolski wasn’t a foul participant for Arsenal and scored some good objectives in his time with the membership, he’s incomparable to the participant the Gunners had been supposedly eager on signing that very same summer time.
When Arsenal needed to signal Eden Hazard
Sure, the longer term Premier League icon that Arsenal needed to register the identical summer time they purchased Podolski was Eden Hazard, and by all accounts, he needed the transfer as effectively.
In an interview with French outlet DH in April 2021, the Belgian’s former agent, John Bico, revealed that the Gunners, Chelsea, each Manchester golf equipment and Tottenham had been eager on his consumer.
Nonetheless, despite the fact that a transfer to the purple aspect of North London was Hazard’s “primary selection”, Bico satisfied him to affix the Pensioners resulting from Arsenal’s place on the time and the variety of younger gamers already there.
Apparently, in another interview with GOAL, former chief switch negotiator Dick Legislation revealed that it was the fee concerned that stopped them from pulling the set off again then.
“Eden Hazard as effectively, we needed to do this deal. However there was a way of accountability and operating the membership prudently, on a regular basis figuring out that each £1 we spent we needed to act as if it was our cash. It was very, very troublesome.”
Sadly for the North Londoners, Lille finally offered their unbelievable expertise to Chelsea for round £32m. Over the subsequent seven years, he would go on to turn into a Premier League “legend,” as Chelsea fan Frank Khalid dubbed him.
In all, the La Louvière-born icon made 352 appearances for the West Londoners, wherein he scored 110 goals, provided 85 assists, and received virtually every thing there’s to win, including two Premier League titles, two Europa Leagues, an FA Cup, and a League Cup.
He then netted the membership as much as £130m from Real Madrid, though the much less mentioned about his time in Spain, the higher.
Ultimatley, Podolski was a fairly profitable signing for Arsenal given the worth and should not be appeared upon as a mistake, nevertheless it definitely was a mistake to not additionally signal Hazard that very same summer time, because the Belgian is undoubtedly a Premier League nice.
