Arsenal: £56 Million Andrea Belotti Bid A Game-Changer

Torino have stated that they have rejected a £56 million bid for Andrea Bellotti from Arsenal. While it was unsuccessful, it is a game-changer nonetheless.

Arsene Wenger has been wrongly criticised for shying away from the brash, ruthless expensive world of football transfers. Many critics wrongly confused his inability to spend money with his apparent unwillingness to spend money, highlighting the issues at Arsenal that Wenger had been accused of causing.

However, that was never true. As proven in the past few years with the £42.4 million addition of Mesut Ozil, the £35 million spent on the services of Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Alexis Sanchez and even splashing £10 million on a goalkeeper well north of 30 from a direct rival, Wenger was never scared of spending. Rather, he never had the chance to do so.

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There is one aspect of the transfer world that Wenger has never liked, though. That is the January transfer window. Wenger famously believes that it is very difficult to find value in January, claiming that the best players are unavailable, raising the price of the rest of the market to levels that are simply not economically sensible. However, this year, Wenger has a £56 million bid for Torino striker Andrea Belotti rejected, with the club’s sporting director, Gianluca Petrachi, stating:

"“We received and refused a €65m (£56m) offer from Arsenal for Andrea Belotti, but it does not reflect the value of the player. Anyway, he is going nowhere for now. We want to enjoy him, then we’ll see what happens. We intend to keep Belotti and president Urbano Cairo signed this important buy-out clause. I think he’s worth more than they have offered.”"

Before everyone loses their mind that Wenger has made a bid for a player above the £50 million mark, I should temper such hopes stating that sources from Arsenal also told Sky Sports, in the same report, that no such bid was ever made. The truth, then, as it so often is amid the murky transfer waters, is difficult to decipher. Nonetheless, the very existent of the quotes suggests that, while a bid may or may not have been made, there is interest from Wenger and the club.

Wenger will be acutely aware of Belotti’s price – or at least have a reasonable ball-park estimate of what it might be – a price that is now seemingly well above the £60 million mark primarily thanks to his 13 goals in 16 Serie A games this season. The very presence of interest in the player suggests that perhaps Wenger is changing his notoriously pejorative attitude towards the January transfer window.

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Wenger is right in saying that finding value in January is very difficult. Teams don’t particularly want to sell and as such, player’s prices rocket. Consequently, whether a successful bid for Belotti is made or not, Weger may well be altering not just his attitude towards January but also transfers in general. Maybe, just maybe, he might well be willing to stretch his vehement belief that value comes first. That would be a true game-changer.

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