Inter coach Luciano Spalletti says Ivan Perisic was conned by Arsenal after a deal to bring the Croatian winger failed to materialise.
The Gunners wanted to take the 29-year-old on loan for the rest of the campaign but refused to accept a clause that would have seen us commit to signing the winger for €35 million in the summer.
Having agreed personal terms with the Gunners, Perisic tried to force the issue by handing in a transfer request. Spalletti subsequently dropped the player from Inter’s clash with Torino on Sunday but he was brought back into the fold last night when it became obvious that a move was off the cards.
Forgiving of Perisic, Spalletti instead took aim at Arsenal.
Asked about his squad after last night’s Copa Italia quarter-final defeat to Lazio, Spalletti said: “We’ve got to get Perisic back on track, but also Nainggolan, as he had injuries, setbacks and various issues. He needs time on the field and patience.
“As for Perisic, there was this story on the market, but he is a professional, understands his role and yesterday it was already a very different mood.
“These things happen in the transfer window, the player received an impressive proposal and was tempted. However, he then realised it was not a true offer, that he’d been conned, and took a step back.
“Now he’ll resume training and as soon as his mind is back fully on Inter, we’ll let him play.”
It’s hard to tell whether we’ve behaved badly or not. To be honest, these things happen in football. Deals fall through all the time.
Like the Aubameyang transfer, it now seems we have a ruthlessness that’s been missing, it won’t always come off…. but clubs have been using dirty tactics to go after our players for years, and as far as I’m concerned, What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Most comments in here missed the point. It’s not that we stood firm against Inter’s demands, it’s that we led the player with false promises. He’s saying that Arsenal have offered a high wage for Perisic, and may even have caused him to hand in a transfer request, only to loan him for 6 months, and return him to Inter without delivering him the promised ‘impressive contract’ that made him press Inter in the first place. Spalletti probably based his accusation on the fact that we completely refused to commit for the obligation-to-buy clause. Even went as far as offering… Read more »
I’d love to know how you know that we misled the player as “it’s that we led the player with false promises” is about as unequivocal as it gets.
Spalletti just throwing out Mourinho style misinformation I would think
The club’s actions implies this. It’s very clear if you stopped thinking it was about inter as club and whatever their demands were. It was between Arsenal and Perisic. Follow with me: Arsenal wanted Perisic. Consequently, The player put forward a transfer request, which is usually seen as an act of rebellion and desperation and a last resort. And usually the player loses some contractual privileges when he writes this request. Now why would he do that? probably because he received a great offer, and received insurances that gave him enough confidence to demand a leave. Now are Arsenal’s actions… Read more »
This is complete nonsense, our manager stated publicly before this saga that we were only able to loan players.
Therefore Perisic was completely aware of the situation and wasn’t given any ‘false promises’.
open your mind a bit. you’re comment is irrelevant. The problem is with the obligation-to-buy clause. The one we never committed to. And what is nonesense is a player putting a transfer request just because of a loan offer that lasts 3 and a half months. players on loan are paid the salary they received at their parent club, so there is absolutely no way the loan offer was what convinced him to do what he did. what convinced him would be the impressive contract to come later in the summer. Only problem is, again, we never committed to that… Read more »
No you are missing the point. Perisic knew it was a loan with the option to buy, dependent on our European football next season. He was not mislead in this regard as we have made it quite clear this window our budget in the summer is highly dependent on what level of competition we are in.
you may be right. But i am not sure that this is in fact what arsenal were thinking. There is another perspective as well. Maybe arsenal thought, Perisic almost 30 years old and having a bad season with Inter and coming to one of the most competitive league in the world. Now for whatever reason we are buying him, we are basing it all on the potential that he is just having one of that bad moment in his career and he will be back to his best. There is a level of risk associated with this kind of deal.… Read more »
What false promises? We never offered to buy him
The contract that we never really committed to give him for divorcing his club.
guys i’m just giving a different point of view, that’s all.
I’m not saying anyone ‘conned’ anyone. I’m saying from a certain perspective it might seem as such.
Jumping to conclusions more than a little here
Red-Sky, you got it right. If we are proud to behave like that then we shouldn’t complain about Alexis Sanchez and agents in general.
Behave like what? We offered to take him on loan and never committed to buy him. WhT exactly did the club do wrong? Inter are just moaning because we wouldn’t commit ourselves to more than a loan deal
What the hell is a gander, anyway?
Only conning that was being done was Inter thinking they’re smart and trying to force us to buy a 30 year old with all his metrics and output this season being less than Iwobi (including higher turnovers, less defensive work, etc).
Probably hoped they were dealing with Gazidis, believing they could fool him into getting Perisic for 200k a week and 30M and then use the funds to go buy Carrasco.
Sorry mate, better luck next time.
Makes no sense what you said. We engaged into negociations with Perisic knowing his stats of this season. We could only get Suarez on loan and we did, end of story.
Hmm
I’ll go without thanks. It’s like when you walk into a shop for a lemon and they force you to buy the whole sack.
That’s a lot of Gin
LOL it’s like trying to trade something of value with cash converters.
Sounds like sour grapes that he couldn’t get rid as we wouldn’t give in to the mandatory purchase, now he is trying to put a silver lining on it and pretend everything is fine and we were the aggressors. Nothing to see here.
I am actually liking this. The bad press about Raul just before we got the deal our way for Denis Saurez is alright by me.
It shows we are not willing to be strong armed by traditional negotiation bullies and agents.
Was thinking the same. Finally someone that can negotiate
its a good point, however the Suarez deal works out? It’s a risk free punt that was negotiated on our own terms.
It’s also good to know that Raul is on our side, and not being ruled by “Barcelona DNA”
You guys are congratulating Arsenal leadership too quick. Their new tactics haven’t got them any great signings yet.
Stupid man in football doesn’t get what he wants and mouths off. Man in football lacks class. In other news, water is wet.
Like the name
Paying 35 mill for a 29/30 year old would be awful business in the long term. The circumstances didn’t suit us and we walked away. A wise decision.
Absolute con.
Messi, Ronaldo, Lewandowski or Kroose for 35 millions appear cheap to me.
For a club with limitless room on their wage bills maybe.
Why should we accept a 35 million clause to buy a 30-year old guy who is good but not top class? Wouldn’t expect him to be first choice for long and for twice the money we could buy a world class prospect that could genuinly transform our attack. Utterly deluded to think we would accept such a clause if it was really demanded
Uhh who’s this frog imposter. I’ve been frog here for at least the last 5 years. Get a new name guy.
Ofcourse we conned hum,we simply wanted him now to push for top 4 and didnt want to pay close to or at marlet value to sign him permanently,inter are no mugs to loan us their starter for for 6 months to be returned.
We pulled these stunts to appease the fans during the window
It depends. If we’re the ones that encouraged him to hand in a transfer request to put pressure on inter only for a 6 months loan with no guarantee to buy, effectively burning his bridge to inter, and with no plan to buy him permanently.
Football clubs are not always honest, even the ones you support, as much as you want them to be.
How much wool is being pulled when the Bosses are Both on record saying they can only loan players, and cannot buy in this window, and taking flack for it from plenty of quarters too.
Sounds like all three ,discounting Carrasco, always too expensive, last day potentials were Irons in the fire. Suarez being the hottest.
We agreed to take him on a loan without a commitment to buy. It’s as simple as that. So Inter only wanted to sell but we wouldn’t pay the ridiculous asking price. Exactly how did we con him?
Finally we are refusing to be bullied into transfer deals. I’m glad we didn’t budge on being forced into a mandatory purchase.
Thank you Raul
Yep, I agree with the consensus on here. This story isn’t registering very highly on my give-a-shit-ometer.
Hahha well put!
Reminds me of the time we had Griezmann in waiting while we tried to do the Ozil deal. Griezmann was very hurt when we dropped our interest and has sworn to never join us in the future. I personally don’t see how it’s easy to communicate to a player that we want them only if somebody else doesn’t work out. You have to have several plans in place and be communicating already beforehand, so I’m not sure we did anything wrong here. It looks like Suarez was first choice, and when that deal was stalling we worked on other targets,… Read more »
I think we had several targets. Inter wanted to sell and we weren’t going to buy just as we negotiated with Barcelona on Suarez. So the loan deal was inconclusive because the clubs couldn’t reach an agreement.
Note that the actual wage per game was touted as 178k on loan, compared to the 3 year contract offer of 107k per week.
Am glad we weren’t taken for a ride this time around. Summer transfer next, please.
With Ramsey leaving, and Denis joining and hopefully playing good this season, I think Mkhitaryan will be sold onwards. I liked him with his honest workrate, willingness to defend and all but frankly he was struggling going forward. If tries to stay here, he must accept a paucity cause its pretty high given the less then optimal performer of his. And a long term replacement for Koscielny of the highest level in CB. – Then we would have Sokratis 3-4 years, Holding 13-14 years, Mavropanos ~15 years along with that CB – and in certainly a better position come summer.… Read more »
Inter were just greedy. Same as barca with malcom
Give it a year and we’ll read all about how Santori would have wanted us to sign this guy for that mythical RW spot (you know, the one Mahrez would have been good in) and how this is all propably Mislintat’s fault somehow..
I think Perisic might have been a back-up option if Denis Suarez fell through.
Take Back Control.
We need to know all the pros and cons of the ill- fated deal before we judge, dear Blogs.lol
Which is why you tend to try and keep these things on the quiet. If the negotiations are so open, it makes it difficult for player and/or club sometimes when they fail. Imagine if this was a player we really have a hard on for, it would be far more difficult to go back in for him in the summer. Fortunately this was a panic loan at best. Come summer, we will review the landscape for wide player. Nelson will return to fold but I suspect Suarez if we decide to bid for him will have more central function therefore… Read more »
I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Perisic or his club. He was trying to skin us financially for a last big payday and his club were hoping to offload a 30 year old who has not performed this season. I’m sure he is still well compensated.
Maybe I need to pull my head out of my arse, but am I the only one who doesn’t understand why a loan with an obligation to buy makes NO SENSE? I think this is the first season where I’ve heard of this nonsense, but I might be wrong (again, head in arse). A loan with an OPTION to buy makes perfect sense – if the player performs well, you may decide to buy him. But why would you take a player on loan, knowing NOTHING about how he would perform, and yet oblige yourself to buy him…? I’m looking… Read more »
Inter only wanted to sell
Spaletti misses the point that every loan deal that has a obligation to buy at the end of loan is a con.
I smell a rat! If Inter were so keen to offload him, why was it necessary for him to put in a transfer request? Surely a transfer request is aimed at forcing your employer’s hand – and there was no need for anyone to force anything. He wanted to leave. Inter wanted him to go. Smoke and mirrors!