Arsenal have confirmed that David Ospina has joined Napoli on a permanent basis in a deal believed to be worth around €4 million.
The Colombia international was on loan at the Estadio San Paolo last year and made 24 appearances as he competed for a first team place with young Italian Alex Meret.
In truth, Ospina’s exit has been a long time coming. Having forced his way into the first team in 2014/15 as a result of Wojciech Szczesny’s exile, the Colombian initially did quite well keeping nine clean sheets in 22 appearances.
However, it didn’t stop the club from acquiring Petr Cech and since then he’s been experienced back-up, picking up an FA Cup medal in the 2017 win over Chelsea.
The signing of Bernd Leno last year was the final nail in the coffin and although we’re short on keepers we’ve not shown any interest in trying to keep him around with Emi Martinez expected to step up to the number 2 position next season. He leaves the Emirates having played a total 70 games.
Good luck to him in Italy.
We really are the TK Maxx of selling goalkeepers.
OooooooospOuttaHereeeeeeee
Good luck to him, always quite liked him. Feigning injury at all times and making routine saves look like worldies
Why? Do you think an error prone keeper is worth more?
Fabianski – Premier league regular – free
Ospina – Napoli 1st choice – 4M
Szczesny – Replaced the greatest goalkeeper of all time – 10M
Almunia – Free – Watford – Ok, still seems like they overpaid
Except Ospina 100% isn’t Napoli’s first choice. He is Meret’s back up.
He isn’t. They rotated keepers per competition and he played a lot of games.
They rotated Ospina & the other keeper when Meret was injured. When Meret got fit, he played almost all of the games. They only loaned Ospina after Meret’s injury in pre season.
Not so sure about that. He made 24 appearances for them last season. If he had make 25 they would have had to sign him for a higher fee. Think that’s the reason why Meret played the other games rather than that he’s above him in the pecking order. But time will tell.
They bought Meret first and injured himself during pre season, was out for the first half of the season. Meret was meant to be first choice and got Ospina after his injury.
Whether or not we rate him.. he is Columbia’s number 1.
So an international goal keeper in this inflated market going for £4M is fairly hilarious selling from our perspective.
Perez going to Leicester for £30M and yet we can’t sell Ospina for £10M. I appreciate we are selling to Napoli not another Premier League Club, but still… £4M is awful business.
But what else is new? In other news water is apparently wet
Yet he was better than Szczesny every keeps talking about. Love how they put Ospina getting the nod after Szcz exile when it was Ospina taking his spot and him not being able to deal with being the second choice keeper
I hope he finds his neck out there…
Needs to eat some pasta…he will find that neck along with a few extra chins as well.
I posted something almost identical a while ago, but it happened again: Ospina played very well for Colombia in a Copa America match. Yes, he did go down injured for a while, but recovered.
Wow! Our transfer kitty just swelled by a whopping 8%! Great selling guys!! Can’t be happier!
A full international goal keeper in his best years with a record 98 caps for a leading South American country gets sold for a huge 4m!
4m is just huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge! Someone please help me get over this! I might die of too much joy here!
Fucking shit.
2 years ago, we put Ospina on the market at 5m. 28 years old, not on big salary, 3 years left on his contract. No one was interested. 2 years later as a 30 year old with one year on his contract we sell him for not much less. I don’t know how you can blame the club for this. You can only sell someone for what the market deems him to be worth it’s done. We move on……and as for the international thing : can you name me another current Colombian keeper ?
It’s a pretty odd situation cause he’s obviously a decent goalie – and if he’s good enough for a top team like Napoli to consider, you’d think there would be more interest from other mid level European teams looking for a cheapish upgrade? But apparently not..
High wages….wasn’t that always the sticking point as to why no one was interested…pretty sure I saw an article on here about that last year when he was linked with Turkey…at least that myths died a death…now it begins again with Mustafi to Fenerbahce
Unless you decide he’s worth 80m and then people have to pay that
Apparently the fee is closer to £5m according to Charles Watts
He still should have gone for at least 10.
Regarding Colombian keepers, there may not be many who give ospina competition, buy he has been playing at the top level for them and there has been nothing wrong with his performances. Which means he is at least half decent.
Some people will complain about anything
Well he isn’t totally wrong but then again neither are you so good luck to Dave and good on the club moving him on for a semi ok fee despite Napolis Shenanigans.
We are just bad sellers. And bad buyers too. Damn, we are in the wrong business.
Why are we bad buyers or sellers. Ospina is an error prone keeper and not worth any more. As far as buying it’s hard to think of many mistakes we’ve made. Maybe Mustafi but then he was a proven German international.
Leno made some big mistake too. I always prefered the flapyhandsky.
My money’s on Martinez to give Leno a run for his money this season. Last pre-season Martinez actually looked like the better keeper and there was clearly a reason that Emery didn’t start Leno straight away. Having said that I like Leno.
The narrative has gotten to you. It’s a fair price for a fairly shit keeper. At the very least, his wages are off the books.
Stop whining for the sake of it.
I don’t think Dave was that bad, but I agree about the whining part. People spend years slating the guy and then when we sell him he’s suddenly a “Colombian international”…something that had previously seemed unimportant to those wanting rid of him.
Mate, it’s actually 5m we made on him. Loan fee was 1m and now he signed for 4m. Plus we get him off the wage bill and he was earning 40k / week. That is 2m per annum. Overall it’s astonishing 7m quid. Not a bad deal for a goalkeeper who’s just 6ft. Stop complaining.
It really is as simple as Abc. Well said mate.
Thank you Abc!
We paid more for Martinelli than we got from selling Ospina. Just let that sink in.
Deserves 10m at least. Solanke goes for 20, Willian getting bids of 55 and ospona only 4m?
Hoping Martinez holds onto the number 2 spot
Thank you for your contribution to the Arsenal, David Ospina, and best wishes for the future.
Best of luck to him!
Always thought if he was just a couple of inches taller, he would be the best goalkeeper in the world.
But despite his height, he did very well for us mostly when he played.
#catlikereflexes
#thatssomemadoverreaching?
Yeah..Really stretching..Just like Dave..The time(s) he tried saving while standing behind his own goal line.
Take your thumbs and put them somewhere … he did it.we all saw it.
1 down, plenty to go….
Good luck Osssssssspiiiiiinaaaaaa! 🙂
We could sell his chant for £10m???? 🙂
3million for an international goalkeeper with that many caps is fucking ludicrous.
Name his competition for the Colombia position?
Good it’s not 3 million then. You probably didn’t even read the article…
Why would we let such a good keeper go for only 2 million?!
I can’t believe this club only sold him for a million. What a joke.
You would think a keeper with that many caps would go for at least 500k
Or a quarter of a million
Transfer Shock as Ospina DOESN’T join a Turkish club!
I’ve heard from reliable sources that Besiktas have been linked with signing him from Napoli next season.
Happy for him.
He’s a decent shot stopper, has some issues with dominating the box bc of height.
But a good keeper otherwise.
Wish we brought in more for him but at least he is moved on.
Surely we can move Jenkinson and Elneny this summer too.
None of them will bring much but they are least featured in the squad so pointless to keep around.
Granted there are a lot of factors concerning transfer fees, however I think the comments about his fee being low are more than valid when you consider Jasper Cillessen (barca’s 30 year old back up keeper) is being sold for €35m, and similarly aged Neto being bought for €25m+. Also the whole ‘why is nobody after him then’ argument is sort of answered by the fact the side who finished 2nd in Serie A have first dibs and want him. He’s not as bad as some people here and on the internet would have you believe, and has basically suffered… Read more »
‘Also the whole ‘why is nobody after him then’ argument is sort of answered by the fact the side who finished 2nd in Serie A have first dibs and want him.’ It doesn’t answer why nobody wanted him 2 summers ago or last summer though. Napoli loaned him as a panic buy at the last minute when Meret broke his arm. Up to then : two whole summer transfer windows without a bite. That’s very telling surely. Totally disagree on the Szczesny bit too. Ospina got in the team around the smoking incident : I think his performances in the… Read more »
He always seemed to be struggling with constipation. Never smiled, always looked nervous, even when we were 4-0 up. Anyway, wish him all the best.
Just realized that we got the same amount for permanently selling Ospina that we paid Barcelona for the 95 minutes of the mercurial Denis Suarez ?????
Ospina is the vice-captain of the Columbian national team set to be the player with the most number of caps in their history. Bewildering to sell him like this.
*Stadio San Paolo, not Estadio
OK, £4m.
I suppose we could have held out for 20, been told to fuck off and had him go on a free next year, but this is probably better.
Suddenly Arsenal had connection with Italians