Arsenal: Leandro Trossard will reward our negligence

Arsenal were all gung-ho to land Leandro Trossard, but now he’s settling for a move to Brighton, where we can watch as he proves our hesitations wrong.

Maybe I was alone in this, but of all the players I was incredibly excited for Arsenal to pursue, Leandro Trossard ranked among the top. The Genk winger had all the fixings I wanted to see in a winger, with his speed and determination and his refusal to quit.

Not to mention the fact that he scored 22 goals and 11 assists last season. And before you say something about it only being the Belgian league, let me say what I always say – you can only make the most of what you’re given.

Trossard was such an under-the-radar solution to our winger problem, and he would bring with him the same kind of situation that Alexis Claude-Maurice would have, had he not chose Borussia Monchengladbach. Neither would monopolize a role that we should be giving to youngsters.

They would compete, which is great, but they wouldn’t demand to be “the guy.”

But chalk Leandro Trossard up as another player that we really should have gone after and signed, but didn’t. He falls in the same category as Pablo Fornals, who joined West Ham despite playing a position that we really could have used reinforcing in.

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According to reports, Brighton are breaking their club record by forking out £18m for the services of Leandro Trossard, and I’m left scratching my head, wondering why that isn’t our £18m being invested in such a clear and obvious solution.

My thought is that Trossard, being 24 and not exactly still a youth prospect, is looking for first team assurances, which, naturally, the Gunners should not be willing to offer him. Whereas Brighton can. This seems like a very sensible decision to make, assuming this is what actually happened.

But it still doesn’t take away the sting that West Ham and now supposedly Brighton are filching our targets and our solutions away from us and we have yet to sign a single player. No matter what went into it, seeing some sort of foray in the other direction has to be made at some point in the near future, or more and more of our targets will fall by the wayside.

And don’t worry, Trossard will remind us all next year that he should be playing for us and not Brighton. I can guarantee you that.