Arsenal: 5 reasons Serge Gnabry the worst bit of transfer business ever

Arsenal sold Serge Gnabry nearly four years ago, but even still he remains as the worst bit of transfer business this club has ever conducted.

Arsenal have had their fair share of shoddy transfer dealings. Mostly when it comes to selling players for well, well below their value, or to a team that then uses our former guys against us. And most of those instances came during the dark days of paying off the Emirates.

Whether it was Cesc Fabregas, or Robin van Persie, or Samir Nasri, there was a lot of bad business. Some of which have since been papered over (keyword ‘papered’), some of which still sparks bad blood.

But no matter who is in question, their transfer business cannot compete with that of Serge Gnabry, the German wonderkid and full-time Gooner who now bangs skulls at Bayern Munich. He was recently spotted wearing an Arsenal kit on Instagram and ever since, fans are dreaming.

In fact, I am feeling so masochistic today that I’m going to retrace the five main reasons why he stands alone as the worst bit of transfer business ever. And why, hopefully, he can be the last truly rendering move the club will ever see.

We start with No. 5.

5. That price…

We had issues with selling players for cheap. This was exemplified when fans celebrated the sale of Alex Iwobi simply because we got a decent fee for him.

But for Serge Gnabry, the extraordinary young talent that should have been our starting right-winger, we got a measly £5m.

£5m! I feel like Bayern Munich should have pity on us and send another £50m our way just for allowing him to end up at their club. That’s how things work these days right? We’re all giving and helping each other out. And, since we didn’t have Gnabry, we had to buy Nicolas Pepe, so if Bayern could forward us another £72m, I’ll call it square.

It wouldn’t make this all better. Not by a long shot. But at least I could sleep a little bit better at night knowing that we have some kind of financial recompense for losing one of the most talented young players we’ve ever had.

Speaking of which, No. 4.

4. He’s a *bleep*-ing world-beater

It’s one thing to lose a player that you liked, and could have been something, but it just didn’t work out and they clearly weren’t good enough for the club. Jeff Reine-Adelaide, for instance. I really liked him and I wish we could have made it work, but he just wasn’t good enough.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

For Serge Gnabry, he’s a verified world-beater. He’s one of the most talented wingers out there and he’s the whole package. He’s fast, he’s strong, he’s innovative, creative, assisting, scoring, defending. He is everything you could ever want a winger to be.

He has not yet had a season with less than 10 goals (I feel nauseated). At Werder Bremen he managed ten goals and an assist. At Hoffenheim, 10 and five. At Bayern in year one, ten and six. Then, this year, he’s got 17 and 10! Like, half of which are against Tottenham too. So how about that?

This is the kind of player that changes things. He’s only 24-years-old and among the best in the world. And we sold him for £5m.

AHHHHH! On to No. 3.

3. It was Tony Pulis’s fault

Any time you can even partially blame Tony Pulis, you want to go ahead and do it, because a lot can be blamed on Tony Pulis. The desecration of Serge Gnabry began with Tony Pulis. And it was so bad that even Arsene Wenger admitted that he tried everything to keep hold of Serge Gnabry at Arsenal, but there was just nothing else he could do.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

Serge Gnabry, the same guy who can’t score less than ten goals, was deemed not good enough for the West Brom attack. This was a West Brom attack engineered by Tony Pulis to have as much forward thrust as a hot wheel powered by carrot juice.

Pulis dropped Gnabry, who was on loan, into the reserves. This is the ultimate form of humiliation and have I mentioned hos awful West Brom was at the time? They have since dropped out of the Premier League and despite a general goodwill towards Kieran Gibbs, I rejoice in every day they are out of the top flight.

Gnabry returned from West Brom completely changed, and not in a good way. He was done with England and not even Arsene Wenger could change that. Thanks, Tony. You really got us back after all.

2. The demand

Here’s another thing that drives me nuts. It’s wasn’t like if we were to lose, say, Rob Holding. Sure, I love the guy, I want him to stay, but we have a lot of hot defensive options ready to be unleashed and more likely to come.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

When we lost Serge Gnabry, he was essentially our best winger. Theo Walcott was still there, but his aspirations of being a striker ended up driving him out of the club. From that point forward, we did not have a single winger at the club until this year, when we signed Nicolas Pepe and Gabriel Martinelli.

It was a multi-year drought of trusting all of our creative endeavors to whatever we could produce straight through the middle. Which usually meant putting way too much faith in Mesut Ozil and hoping that our fullbacks could provide any width we could hope to muster.

Gnabry would be doing all the things he did in Germany, but he’d be doing it where he belongs, at the Emirates. The opportunity was there.

Finally, the worst of all at No. 1.

1. He still loves the club

To draw again on comparisons, it’s not like Samir Nasri, who has become a bit of an anti-Gunner. That was a hard transfer to stomach too, but the fact that he has distanced himself so much from the club since has made it easier to get over him.

Serge Gnabry has never taken such an approach. He has appeared on social media multiple times wearing an Arsenal kit. When he slammed home goals against Chelsea for Bayern, he tweeted that London was still red. Same with the way he absolutely slaughters Tottenham to this day, knocking home goal after goal against them.

Gnabry’s recent escapade, spending the quarantine in an Arsenal kit, is just the latest. He continues to root for and support the club that he was raised at and it’s just heart-rendering to know that he should still be here.

Of course, fans are pushing for him to rejoin, and it’s no question as to why, but for now, that seems a bit far-fetched. Though if he never makes it back to Arsenal, I would be quite surprised.