Fabrizio Romano spoke to The Arsenal Lounge about the Gunners’ failure to sell a couple of their first-team players in the summer transfer window.
The financial impact of the global pandemic hit clubs hard and Arsenal weren’t any different. We had to wait until the final day of the transfer window to complete our biggest signing of the summer and that was because we failed to generate cash through player sales.
Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira were on the transfer list but the duo could only secure loan moves. Mesut Ozil stayed put, as did defenders Sead Kolasinac and Sokratis Papastathopoulos.
The latter two were extremely close to a move to Bayer Leverkusen and Napoli respectively, but the deals collapsed. Romano has revealed the reasons behind the two failed transfers.
Why Arsenal failed to sell Kolasinac and Sokratis
He said: “(Sead) Kolasinac was a done deal with Bayer Leverkusen. It was absolutely a done deal but it collapsed because of his salary. He didn’t find an agreement on personal terms.”
“Sokratis (Papastathopoulos) was sold to Napoli in August, it was a done deal but it was not completed because Napoli weren’t going to sell (Kalidou) Koulibaly to Manchester City.”
Romano himself claimed back in September that Arsenal had agreed a fee in the region of £10 million plus potential add-ons with Leverkusen for Kolasinac. (Read here) That would have been incredible business but sadly, it failed.
Sokratis has been left out of Mikel Arteta’s Premier League and Europa League squads. Manchester City failing to sign Koulibaly ruined his chances of heading to Napoli. That has forced him to settle for game time with the reserves, which is a real shame.
It will be interesting to see if there is any interest in the duo in January. Arsenal would love to reduce their wage bill by getting rid of the two defenders, but their humongous salaries remain a big concern for overseas clubs.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
