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Arsenal held summer talks over £78m trio – reports

By on October 12, 2015

According to the Express, Arsenal held formal talks with AS Monaco over the availability of Geoffrey Kondogbia, Layvin Kurzawa and Anthony Martial during the summer months.

As we all know by now, Arsene Wenger frustrated many Arsenal fans after failing to bring in a single outfield players in the summer despite the club having over £100m at it’s disposal.

We were linked with a whole host of names but for one reason or another, the boss refused to close-out a deal and decided our current squad was capable of challenging this season.

It looks like we were interested in three Monaco players as the Express are now citing reports coming out of France that claim Arsenal chiefs held formal talks with the Ligue 1 outfit over the availability of Kondogbia, Kurzawa and Martial.

Midfielder Kondogbia was heavily linked with a move to the Emirates during the summer but the newspaper says we were put off by his £25m asking price so watch-on as he joined Inter Milan instead.

Left-back Kurzawa was also touted as a potential replacement for Nacho Monreal when he was being linked with a return to Spain but once again we sat back and let him join PSG for £17m.

The final player may be the most frustrating as we were apparently told Martial was not for sale only to see the young French striker move to Manchester United in an initial £36m deal on deadline day.

Martial has enjoyed an excellent start to life at Old Trafford and many feel he would have been the perfect fit at Arsenal. However, even if Monaco had told us he was for sale, would Arsene have matched United’s £36m bid? I’m not convinced he would have.

The big miss for me was Kondogbia. We desperately need more depth in the holding role and he would have been ideal competition for Francis Coquelin. Sadly he’s over in Italy and his price will no doubt go even higher if he’s a success at the San Siro, so it looks like we’ve missed our opportunity.