Arsene Wenger had to guide Arsenal through a tough financial period after the Emirates Stadium was built, and transfers were not easy.
As a result, Arsenal went from a title-challenging team to a younger one which Wenger kept in the top four of the Premier League, and whilst he had identified some players who could upgrade his team, there were plenty of stars who the club could not afford to pay a premium for.
For years, it was believed that veteran Fulham goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer could have moved to the Emirates in 2010 as an instant upgrade on Manuel Almunia, but Wenger and Arsenal did not increase their bid from £2m to the asking price of £5m.
However, the goalkeeper has now spoken out about his failed move, and revealed that there is plenty more to the story than originally reported.
Mark Schwarzer explains why proposed Arsenal move collapsed
Speaking on the Football’s Greatest Podcast, Schwarzer explained that Roy Hodgson’s departure from Fulham in the summer of 2010 prevented a move to Arsenal to become the first-choice option.
“Having the opportunity go to Arsenal, I remember the phone call was three days before we played our opening game against Germany at the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, and Roy Hodgson called me and said ‘we’ve had a call from the Arsenal and they’ve made an offer for you, they want to sign you, I thought it’d be right to call you and ask if you wanted to go,'” Schwarzer explained.
“I was like ‘of course I want to go, but how do I say this without being disrespectful? It’s the Arsenal and it’s a chance to compete at the very highest level, they want to sign me as a number one and play Champions League football, something I’ve never done at that stage of my career and I was 37 years old.
“Unfortunately for me, the thing that killed my move ultimately was that Roy left Fulham about three weeks later and went to Liverpool before anything would be done with Arsenal and the club were in limbo. We only signed Mark Hughes two weeks before the start of the season, and Arsenal were kind of there, were interested, they made an offer and Fulham turned it down.
“He (Hughes) avoided me like the plague as much as he possibly could, the CEO played all sorts of games with me and in the end you know I even ended up having a meeting with the late Al-Fayed and he was very adamant that unless Arsenal paid £10m for me, I wasn’t going anywhere.
“At the time I was furious, because it was just crazy to ask them to pay £10m at 37 years old, it was my understanding that they already offered £4m, which was I thought was more than generous for that stage, and unfortunately they just they wouldn’t let me go.”
Could Mark Schwarzer have been a good signing for Arsenal?
The Australian veteran could have had a strong short-term impact, but in the 2010-11 season, Wojciech Szczesny eventually overtook the disappointing Almunia as the number one option.
With over 500 Premier League appearances in his career, Schwarzer could have been the cool head needed at the back for Arsenal at the time, in what was a chaotic defence.
The veteran could have been the first-choice in a Champions League side, who would go on to play against Barcelona in that season, and Wenger could have had an experienced, quality goalkeeper on his books.
Given his age though, Arsenal could not afford to pay £10m in 2010 for a keeper who may have only lasted two more seasons as the number one, and the emergence of Szczesny meant that Schwarzer eventually became less of a necessity.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
