Following a summer of players getting their way and departing to apparent greener grass, it’s comforting to see a player engineering to jump ship to our benefit.
After Wenger’s usual ‘bid low, see what we can get away with’ first offer of £5 million for Mikel Arteta was rejected by Everton without a second thought, he responded with an offer of reportedly in the region of £10 million to tempt the Toffees noses in parting with their prize asset. This too was dismissed, with a ‘we want £20 million, so bugger off’ forthright rebuttal.
Things looked dead in the water, and then something happened that surprised all involved. At the 11th hour (well 10pm to be exact), Arteta invoked the ‘player power’ clause, for once in the favour of Arsenal.
David Moyes came out and stated:
‘Mikel indicated to me that he wished to join Arsenal.’
‘I am very disappointed to lose him but the prospect of Champions League football was something I wasn’t able to offer him.’
This left Everton powerless to keep Mikel and they were forced to accept the £10 million offer on the table.
As an aside, Mikel also took a pay cut to secure the move, so it proves that not all players move for the money and some do move for the advancement of their careers.
When player power works for us!!!
So there you have it have. Wacky Wednesday is over for a few months and we have a squad that now should at least put us in the mix with the top four.
Wenger also managed to keep his frugal spending policy intact with a net profit of £22 million over the summer, shelling out £51.4 million and recouping £73.4 million in transfer fees.
Here’s to it all starting again on January 1st.
Steve Wellman writes regularly for Gunnersphere.com
