Arsenal have been left reeling in the transfer market more times than they’d like
Arsenal will hope to build on their Premier League title win this summer.
However, there’s been more than one window where the Gunners have been left wanting more. Arsenal ended their 22-year drought last season by capturing the title. While they reached the mountain top of domestic football, this is only the start for Mikel Arteta, who insisted his side would improve in the summer.
However, it’s been a quiet summer at the Emirates Stadium, with the only new arrival being goalkeeper Illan Meslier, while Piero Hincapie’s loan from Bayer Leverkusen has been made permanent.
The race to bolster their squad is far from over, as interest in players like Bradley Barcola and Bruno Guimaraes remains. With the Gunners continuing to work on deals, they’ll hope to avoid the disappointment they’ve faced on numerous occasions when attempting to acquire the best talent the sport has to offer. Here football.london takes a look back at some of those devastating near-misses.
Mykhailo Mudryk
Arsenal were initially leading the race for Mykhailo Mudryk back in 2023, but struggled to come to an agreement on a fee with Shakhtar Donetsk. The Gunners put forth three bids for the winger, but they were all rejected as they refused to meet the club’s £85m (€100m) valuation, including add-ons.
Mudryk remained eager for a move to the Emirates and regularly posted on social media to demonstrate he was watching their matches. The lack of an agreement prompted Chelsea to re-establish negotiations with the Ukrainian club.
The Blues swiftly moved ahead of their city rivals in negotiations because of their decision to offer £26.5m in add-ons on top of the initial £62m fee, something the Gunners were unwilling to do. Despite his promise, Mudryk’s time in west London has been nothing short of a nightmare.
The winger struggled to establish himself in the starting line-up in his first two seasons before he was suspended for testing positive on a doping test in December 2024. In April earlier this year, Mudryk was slapped with a four-year ban from English football until 2028. He has appealed against the decision.
Thomas Lemar
Arsenal were inches away from breaking the British transfer record with their proposed £92m move for Thomas Lemar in 2017. Then, playing for Monaco, the Frenchman had agreed to join Arsenal on deadline day, with the transfer contingent on the Gunners’ sale of Alexis Sanchez to Manchester City.
The sale of the Chilean would have allowed Arsene Wenger to fund the acquisition of Lemar. However, the deal collapsed at the last minute when Lemar, who was set to join the France national team later that day, wasn’t told in time by Monaco about the transfer.
The breakdown in communication resulted in Lemar remaining in France for another season and Sanchez staying at Arsenal despite the agreement with City. The midfielder joined Atletico Madrid a year later and has remained there since, apart from a season-long loan at Girona this past campaign.
Gonzalo Higuain
The former Argentine striker is a player Arsenal fans have become well accustomed to. Gonzalo Higuain was long linked with a move to the Gunners, and it almost happened in 2013 when the club reportedly agreed terms with the player.
Expected to cost the north London side more than £20m, the move failed when Higuain instead signed for Napoli on a deal worth £130,000 per week. Arsene Wenger later confirmed the move never came to fruition.
The Frenchman said, “We were working on two or three targets, and Higuain was one of them. It didn’t come off in the end, but that doesn’t take anything away from his quality. Napoli took advantage of that at the right moment.
“As we know, in the end, Real Madrid sold two great players, one of them went to Napoli, one went to Arsenal. So, it’s 1-1 on that front.” Higuain retired from football in 2022 after a stint with Inter Miami.
Juan Mata
In need of a creative midfielder following the departures of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas, Juan Mata was a key target for Arsenal. However, the Spaniard instead signed for Chelsea in 2011 despite reportedly agreeing personal terms with the Gunners.
According to Dick Law, Arsenal’s former transfer negotiator, the club were put off by Mata’s £37m package, which totalled the transfer fee and his wages. Speaking to The Athletic, Law said: “Then we waited. Juan definitely wanted to come to Arsenal; there was no question about that.”
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When asked whether Arsenal ever considered paying above the odds for a player, he explained: “I don’t think that calculation ever entered our equation. We didn’t have the money to say, ‘We’ll spend a bit more.'”
Mata went on to spend two-and-a-half years at Chelsea before joining Manchester United in 2014, and left after eight years. Currently a free agent, the 38-year-old most recently played for Melbourne Victory.
Demba Ba
Demba Ba was close to moving across the city from Chelsea to Arsenal in 2013, but revealed such a transfer was blocked by Jose Mourinho. In his second spell in charge of the Blues, the Real Madrid boss turned down Ba’s request to leave Stamford Bridge due to a lack of playing time, given the arrival of Samuel Eto’o.
Recalling the situation, Ba, 41, told FourFourTwo: “I was really close [to joining Arsenal]. I was at my house in Paris, having a day off, when I got a phone call from Arsene Wenger – he asked if I’d come back to London for a medical.
“I woke up at 9am on transfer deadline day, jumped on a train, got to London, but then it never happened. Arsenal made a couple of signings on the same day [Mesut Ozil and Emiliano Viviano], and Mourinho chose to block the deal, as he didn’t want to help make one of Chelsea’s competitors stronger.”
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