Lukasz Fabianski says Arsenal once had a truly ‘unbelievable’ player but Arsene Wenger sold him for just £10m

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Lukasz Fabianski spent seven years as an Arsenal player.

The Poland international joined the club from Legia Warsaw in the summer of 2007. He was a fine keeper, but Fabianski was mostly a backup for Arsenal.

The likes of Jens Lehmann and Manuel Almunia were ahead of the Pole in his early years, and they were both better than him at the time.

Then, when Fabianski would’ve hoped to take their place, one of his compatriots became the Arsenal number one under Arsene Wenger.

Despite that, Fabianski has a lot of respect for him.

Lukasz Fabianski hails former Arsenal teammate Wojciech Szczesny

Wojciech Szczesny actually joined Arsenal 18 months before Fabianski.

The former was only a teenager at the time and had to play for the Gunners academy before he made it into the senior setup.

Szczesny eventually became Arsenal’s number one, ahead of Fabianski, and was very good more often than not under Wenger.

Even though he was his number two, Fabianski still acknowledges how good he was and raved about him on David Seaman’s podcast recently.

When asked to name the top goalkeepers he had worked with, Fabianski named and hailed Lehmann first. Then, he praised Szczesny.

“Then obviously working with Wojciech, I think his natural talent and ability is unbelievable, one of the best I’ve seen,” he said.

“He made it look easy sometimes in the way he was like, whatever the coach asked of him, he would just deliver, like ‘okay I got it’. His aura about him, from a very young age you could see that he has something in him, so Wojciech for sure.”

What happened when Arsenal tried to re-sign Wojciech Szczesny

After disciplinary issues at Arsenal, Szczesny was sent out on loan to AS Roma in Italy for two seasons.

In the summer of 2017, Juventus came calling on a permanent deal, and Wenger accepted a £10 million bid to sell him (BBC).

Szczesny spent seven years at Juve and won eight trophies. In 2024, the goalkeeper terminated his contract, and to many people’s surprise, Arsenal made an offer to sign him.

But, the Pole rejected a move to the Emirates after considering it.

“I was open to talks with Arsenal because of the respect and sentiment for the club. But when I started talking, I knew it wasn’t for me.

“The Arsenal option came up before the Juventus contract was terminated. I said: “OK, we can talk”. But, two days later, I said it didn’t make much sense.”

Szczesny then hung up his boots, but in October last year, came out of retirement and joined Barcelona. He is a key player for them now.