The Nearly Men: Players Wenger Almost Signed – Part 2: Defenders

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In the second instalment of this series, we shall be covering a number of defenders who almost made the move to the Emirates. Defence has been arguably Arsenal’s weakest area for over a decade – would these players have provided better quality options to others Wenger ended up signing instead?

Vincent Kompany

Vincent Kompany was almost signed by Arsenal from his boyhood club Anderlecht back in 2006 following the departure of Sol Campbell, but Wenger was put off by his £5m price-tag and the Belgian ended up moving to Hamburg instead.
11 years later on it looks as though this was a poor decision on Wenger’s part, and despite his recurring injury problems the past few seasons which have severely limited his playing time, he played a key role in both of City’s title-winning campaigns.
Kompany’s agent, Jacques Lichtenstein, had the following to say on the matter in 2014: “I had meetings with Emilio Butragueno at Real Madrid, the club leaders at Barcelona and by Arsene Wenger himself at Arsenal. But heading to an absolute top club immediately was not the right solution because Vincent is someone who feels alone in an environment where he is not properly valued. Vincent is not a third or fourth choice.”
The man is without a doubt a leader – the type of leader Arsenal have lacked since the dismantling of the Invincibles squad.

Gerard Pique

Cesc Fabregas wasn’t the only youngster Wenger tried to sign from Barcelona’s famous La Masia academy back in 2003 – he also went after Gerard Pique.
The Spaniard even travelled to London to complete a deal, but legal issues delayed anything getting finalised at that point in time – leading to a verbal agreement for him to join the next summer when he was 16. Pique’s agent rejected the offer however, and the player moved instead to Manchester United, where he would stay for four years.
Pep Guardiola would then take him back to Barcelona in 2008, where he would go on to play a key role in the club’s enormous successes – including two treble winning seasons in 2008/09 and 2014/15. What an incredible partnership he could have formed with Laurent Koscielny over the last few years.

Raphael Varane

Raphael Verane signed for Real Madrid in 2011, and Wenger must rue missing out on what could have been a significant capture in the transfer market.
“I’m happy for him because he’s carving out a role at one of the world’s best clubs, which is remarkable,” Wenger said in 2013 in an interview with Eurosport. “Yet at the same time, when you are in charge of a club like Arsenal, you have to wonder why this player is not playing for us. He was at Lens, and we might well have caught him there.”
Gilles Grimandi has since suggested that the nature of Verane’s position makes clubs less willing to fork out on youngsters until they have matured and gained experience, which makes sense. This didn’t stop Arsenal signing Calum Chambers as a 19-year-old however, only one year older than the Frenchman was when he made the move to Los Blancos – it’s safe to say the prior is nowhere near the latter’s level just yet.
Varane is still only 24 years of age and is likely to be regarded as one of the world’s best in his position for the next decade. It’s a real shame that Arsenal didn’t secure his signature when they had the chance.

Chris Smalling

Chris Smalling has been linked with Arsenal as recently as this summer – Jose Mourinho doesn’t seem to rate the centre-half and has signed a couple of other players in his position since taking the reins at Old Trafford.
It was back in 2010 however that Arsenal were very close to securing a deal for the 27-year-old, but were too slow as by the time they made an offer, United had already agreed a £7m fee with Fulham as well as personal terms with the player.
Arsenal’s counter-offer was rejected, and Wenger said: “It just looks like Manchester United offered more money than us.”
While he’s probably the weakest link on this list, Smalling could have been a good acquisition for the Gunners, arguably providing a stronger option than Per Mertesacker in the years since the big German joined in 2011.