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Arsenal: The real story behind missing out on Fabinho
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal have had and always will have massive appeal to any player out there, but Fabinho has just shown us what could become a bigger problem.
I’m not too beat up about Arsenal missing out on Fabinho. Yes, he would have been nice, and I wish we could have landed him, but there are plenty of other options out there and, so long as Granit Xhaka is in this midfield, I’m a happy camper.
That said, I get why people would be bothered by the Gunners inability to land what many would consider to be a long time transfer target who also may or may not have been the perfect solution to this midfield. As well as the perfect companion for Xhaka.
It’s not the fact that we missed out on him that I want to focus on, because I’ve already done that. It’s why we missed out on him.
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When Arsene Wenger was here, the main appeal of Arsenal, aside from two decades straight of Champions League football, was playing under Le Prof. So many players cited Wenger as a major reason why they chose the Emirates over other potential suitors.
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The history of the club goes a long way too, as they are (even still) one of the biggest clubs in Europe, no matter what the haters say.
Fabinho choosing Liverpool over a late option to Arsenal may not be the last time we have to watch such transfers go the opposite way. It wasn’t more than a few years ago that players were constantly opting for the Gunners over the Reds, but the tides are changing, and now that the North Londoners have been out of the Champions League for two straight years, the appeal is dropping.
Not to mention the loss of Wenger, the universal appeal.
Big picture, it just means that landing Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi and that whole gang have more work cut out for them. They’re going to have to get more clever with their transfers and more or less stay out of the major lanes, where players like Fabinho move.
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Which isn’t the worst thing in the world. Any player we get in these windows is a player who is buying into the Arsenal project. They’re going to be guys that believe in what we’re doing in this post-Wenger revolution, and those are the kinds of players that are going to power the club into the next generation.