Raul Sanllehi has confirmed that the club made offers to Danny Welbeck to extend his stay at the club last summer, but the England international turned them down, choosing instead to see out his deal to take advantage of a Bosman move.
The Gunners have been without the forward since November after he suffered a serious broken ankle, although he is expected to make the bench for the Europa League final, but after the game in Baku he’ll be available on a free transfer.
Speaking about the circumstances regarding his departure, the Head of Football said, “In ways it is quite similar to the Aaron situation.
“This summer we were in talks with him to see if he would stay or go, he had several offers, he decided to continue in the club until the end of the contract.
“We respected that. We knew that he was going to add a lot to the club over the last year, but again, we were in the last year of contract so it was a very similar situation.”
Let’s hope that there’s still time for him to make a telling contribution before he leaves, it’d a nice end to his Arsenal career after enduring some terrible times with injury a winner against Chelsea would be delicious.
Earlier Sanllehi explained what happened with Aaron Ramsey, admitting the club made a mistake in allowing him to go into the final year of his contract.
When the time came, economic factors played a part and with the club unwilling to add to the wage bill by handing him a much improved contract, his fate was sealed and he secured a free transfer move to Juventus.
Ensuring that doesn’t happen in the future is something Sanllehi has been clear on in the past, so expect a bit more ruthlessness in contract talks and decision in the future.
Interesting. In that case , he can fuck off.
Why? Squad/utility player decides he’d like one last big payday and a chance of playing regular football for the last couple of years of his career, what’s wrong with that? He’s been pretty good value for us, when not unwellbeck, and hasn’t kicked up a fuss.
Wow, so edgy!
3rd choice striker behind two beauties. He’s been a decent, albeit injured, player for the club. I wish him well at Everton or wherever else he decides to go.
A bit harsh in delivery …
Love Wele and wish him the best.
But I’m kinda with you . Anyone who doesn’t want to stay can kindly fuck off . (Except , Auba and Mickey , we are in the wilderness without those guys).
Typo .
Auba and Lacca that is.
If the unsullied have taught us anything it’s that mickey or not , life goes on.
Who’s Mickey? You talking bout mhiki…dude pls, that guy’s just basic average! Closing at 30, with what he offer’s I’d rather we get lucky and sell him (£200,000 a week? Sweet Jesus, we must be high on a different grade)
If we knew he wasn’t signing last summer, why didn’t we sell him on then? Isn’t that exactly what Raul said we needed to do before they run down their contract?
Raul said you do that with 2 years left, because by the last year the player can ride it out. Not like you can force him to walk the economic plank to be sold, could we?
The key in the future is to not let people get into the last year of contract.
Which means in turn we either sign players to 6 year contracts (which they don’t like doing) or 4 year deals which will be renewed every 2 years to avoid the final 2 years!!! This is what we did with Walcott, who ended up one of the highest paid players despite generally being not quite good enough! We can’t win!
Contracts are tricky.
Sign them for too long, and if they’re poor, they become difficult to shift, and end up with constant loans (see Jenkinson).
Probably do what all the other clubs do; 4 year contracts with an extra 1-year activation option.
In fairness to Walcott, his goal scoring record held up for a wide forward and continued to hold up throughout his time with us, injuries permitting. And it was still probably below market rate for his position at a top club. His contract made sense. Others haven’t…
Wele can probably go to a team like WHam or another club and demand a lot more playing time and a larger piece of the club wage availability. I really can’t blame him for that, considering he really has been limited a bit in his involvement, and may not have a key role in Emery’s plans going forward.
I could also see Everton. They could use a striker, and Welbeck could mentor and maybe sometimes play alongside young Calvert-Lewin. Not sure where this leaves Theo, though…
So what is the line between making a mistake to not renew a player’s contract before it ends, and not being able to persuade a player to renew his contract before it ends?
The line is when you have 2 years left, because at that point you can sell them.
You can attempt to sell them. A footballer still doesnt have to accept any offer and can just ride his time out collecting a fat paycheck and doing SFA if he wanted too.
i think wenger will be proven right. we’ll see more players finish their contracts. why wouldn’t they? they can add the transfer fee to their salary. rambo is about to make 400,000 per week. cha ching!
Which is why the 2 year period isn’t important. If a club catches wind the player wants a Bosman, they can try and sell early. Because it’s also not in the players interest to rot on the bench for 2-3 years either, as it also devalues them and what they can demand.
Like you mentioned earlier you can’t force players to leave even with 2 years left. Every player is different but in the case with welbeck there was nothing to do 2 years ago, he was coming off a major injury and the value wasn’t there. I don’t think at that point a 1 yr extension would be something he would do. Clubs just aren’t going to sit talented players for 1-2 years because they refuse to sign a new contract unless they can afford it on the pitch. Like rabiot of psg, I’m sure TT could have used him the… Read more »
Good plan…..can’t wait for the 2019 edition
Question. Would you all prefer to be in the CL for the money and not stand a chance pf winning it. Or, go all the way in next years final?
Next years Europa final, I was meant to say
CL and money. More likely to attract better players, much more money to fund those players (prize & participation money, ticket sales, shirt sales, sponsorship), and a better chance at building a squad capable of challenging for the PL with those players. Puts us in a much better position as a football club.
It’s like saying would you like to get promoted from the Championship or win the League Cup
All good points, but CL money hasn’t built a title challenging squad for 11 years now. All we’ve had is last 16 drubbings and been Chelsea, Utd and Liverpool’s whipping boys.
I seem to like your angle….I mean, it’s a fact that in 11 years of UCL, there wasn’t ever an edition where we ourselves as fans felt “we could do it”, not until the quarter finals of the 2006 edition did we start believing we could actually win.
So what do you think will happen now that we’re not spending even as much?
Would you rather be handed a brand new Aston Martin and worry about whether you can keep it clean, or keep driving that battered ten year old Ford Focus which won’t look any worse when it’s covered in crud?
You’ve gone a bit off the rails there
What a lame excuse regarding Ramsey. Mkhi is earning flipping 200k a week. We should NEVER have agreed to that ridiculous swap deal. I can see why Wenger was said not to be too keen on the idea.
Ramsey should have been our captain going into the new generation.
It’s sad. Now we have Mkhi on 200k, Kolasinac on over 100k, Elneny on 65k, Jenkinson on 50k. All terrible terrible deals.
Amazing that you know so much detail about what individual players are being paid. Is there a website that publishes this stuff?
Actually I believe there is.
To be fair, 50-65k for a top 6 premier league squad player is right about market value so I don’t see the point in moaning about that. And Kola on 100k is basically the same, plus the extra we pay for having signed him for a free, so again no point in complaining about paying market rate for these guys. Miki is overpaid for sure, especially considering his output for us, and I guess we had our arm twisted by Sanchez in that regard. I like Miki and I’d love for him to get back to his Dortmund form with… Read more »
You mean the same Wenger that turned down £60M for Sanchez in his last year, thus forcing us to have to take that deal or lose him on a free?
But if irc that offer was last minute in the transfer window. With that offer in closing days wenger tried to persuade lemar to come but it just wasn’t in the cards. Why sell a player who was vital to the clubs success in the pitch and not be able to bring anyone in to replace or at least try to replace that type of production? Wenger was in a no win position there at that point. Yes he could have sold the summer before but at that time you had hope he would sign during the season which does… Read more »
Right, so the club shoulda just lost Sanchez and got nothing out of it.
That’s just fooking brilliant. Really, do keep it up.
(that’s sarcasm, btw. please stop.)
So incurring a 200k wage bill on a 4yr contract that gives u next to zero in quality is better???
I read this as Sanllehi saying he had lots of offers from other clubs, not necessarily us. Anyone else see it that way?
Yeh I kinda wasnt sure. I would lean towards Arsenal gave him an offer, and he had a couple offers from other clubs. None which were appealing obviously.
But good luck to him, he has put in for Arsenal everytime he was asked too and I wish him the ebst moving forward. Just not when he comes up against the Arsenal.
So, why didn’t they sell him last summer?
Reading through each of these posts about what Vinai and Raul have been saying, I think some of people’s frustration is also symptomatic of the wider issue of KSE’s 100% ownership of the club. To frame my point – I think are serious problems with Kroenke ownership, and don’t agree with a lot of it (although having said that, the only quotes I can find from Kroenke about Arsenal are all from a few years ago, so I don’t know about his recent opinions, so logically I don’t have much to go off of to say whether I currently agree… Read more »
It’s so funny, for years this place was filled with fans crowing on our high horse about hoe morally better we are for not having a sugar daddy and doing things our own way, and our focus on youth.
Now it’s full of people begging for a sugar daddy so we can splurge the cash on players, and now have no time for youth development.
Shows how easily people will sell out for silver and gold.
I think for me personally it’s the fact the value of the club has doubled since he bought the club. He has enough equity to splurge for 1-2 seasons to give the club legit chance
Top comment; insightful, restrained, and mature.
Too few of those ’round here these days.
Cheers.
It’s this communication from the club in order to negotiate better deals in the transfer market? Reminding agents we have strict wage structure.
I think he’s gonna be hard to replace and I’m sad to see him go. But we can only move forwards so best of luck to him and let’s try youth to supplement him.
Makes a lot of sense for Welbeck, why be a 3rd choice CF here when you can be 1st choice on a potentially much larger salary? Wish him the best.
I wish him well as long as he’s totally shit against us if we have to face him. Although he can be comedically bad at times in front of goal he adds a lot of hard work, productivity and a good attitude to the team so it’s a shame to lose him. He’s probably the best you’re going to get for a third choice striker, although I think had he not got injured he probably would have been a regular starter on the wings. Emery clearly likes him. If he really wants to be that first choice central striker though… Read more »
I don’t know who to believe. I don’t believe an offer was made to welby and he rejected it. Nothing was offered to him. They let him run down his contract hoping if he improves well and goes injury free they will consider to extend his contract .
What a massive gamble for a guy of his age and injury record to turn down the offer. I’m guessing that was before the ankle.
Of course!