Arsenal almost lost one of their first-team favourites this summer, but one thing stopped a move from happening.
The summer transfer window has concluded, with Andrea Berta doing a tremendous job as Arsenal’s sporting director.
Arsenal welcomed eight new players to the squad and also had a busy deadline day, seeing Piero Hincapie arrive and others depart.
As many as seven deals happened at Arsenal on deadline day, with Mikel Arteta’s squad now locked in for the season ahead.
Arsenal were open to selling Gabriel Martinelli this summer
The most important thing Berta had to do over the summer was to bolster Arteta’s depth, with additional attention given to the attack.
Noni Madueke, Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze arrived to attempt to improve Arsenal’s output going forward, adding competition to the squad.
One player who will be impacted by the change is Gabriel Martinelli, who could be benched more this season after enduring two disappointing campaigns.
The 2022/23 season showed exactly what the Brazilian is about, but since then, Arsenal haven’t seen anywhere near such levels.
Arteta faces a problem as Martinelli continues to decline, an issue that was almost taken from the boss during the summer.
As per the understanding of the Daily Mail, Arsenal were ‘open to selling’ Martinelli at the start of the transfer window.
A deal was not able to be done as there was a difference in valuation of around £20m, with interested clubs quoting £40m, whereas Arsenal valued the winger closer to £60m.
After coming to the realisation that their asking price for Martinelli would not be met, Arsenal were ‘deterred’ from trying to sell him in a bid to ‘avoid a long-running saga’.
Arsenal might regret not cashing in on Martinelli
It’s a real shock given that Martinelli started 25 Premier League games last season, coming across as a firm starter in Arteta’s plans.
Instead, things were rather different, with Arsenal willing to part ways with the Brazilian in the summer.
Though the 24-year-old has a lot of potential, it has not been seen for a very long time, with Martinelli collecting criticism already this season.
Now that reinforcements have arrived, there’s a good chance that the forward’s game time will reduce, which will, in turn, impact his market value.
Transfermarkt data says Martinelli has a current market value of £47m, so with that in mind, it must be asked: Will Arsenal regret not cashing in for £40m?
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