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Higuain Claims He Rejected Arsenal Move

By on August 2, 2013

I came across an interesting quote for one-time Arsenal target Gonzalo Higuain this morning that suggests he turned down the chance to join Arsenal in favour of joining Napoli.

We all should know the story by now. We were on the verge of signing the Argentinean hitman for around £23m when Napoli came in with a late bid, flashing the cash after selling Edinson Cavani to PSG for £55m. Understandably, Real Madrid suddenly upped the asking price, knowing Napoli had money to burn, and they promptly agreed a fee in the region of £32m with the Italians.

The newspapers claimed Arsene Wenger refused to match Napoli’s bid, pulled out of the race and switched his attention to Luis Suarez (who he then bid £40m for). We all thought Higuain would have been ours if the boss had just matched Napoli’s offer. Arsenal fans up and down the country castigated Wenger for once again being tight and questioned why he was prepared to pay over £40m for an arm-biter like Suarez, but not pay £32m for a proven goalscorer like Higuain.

And this is still a valid question, but how do we really know we didn’t match Napoli’s offer? We only know what the papers tell us, so perhaps Arsenal did match their bid but the player snubbed us in favour of a move to Naples?

The latest quotes coming from Higuain suggest that a move to Arsenal was still an option for him. He’s quoted in Le10 as saying:

“Arsenal and Juventus ? I spoke with my Argentinian friends who played in Naples before, and they told me positive things about the city and the fans, so I decided to come here. This is a growing team and the San Paolo is a mythical stadium. I am happy and proud to be part of this team.”

I know what you’re probably thinking, of course he’s going to say that he choose Napoli over other teams and he’d no doubt say the same if he opted to join Arsenal, but it does make you wonder.

The player has no real reason to lie. Sure he wants to please his new adoring fans by making out he rejected other big clubs for them, but he could have done that by simply naming Juventus. The Napoli fans will love him for turning down the Serie A champions alone, they probably aren’t that fussed about us.

So if we really did pull out due to the price hike, Higuain could just have said something along the lines of “Arsenal? I was close to a move there but it didn’t work out and when I had the chance to join Napoli, it was something I couldn’t resist…..blah, blah”.

Did we refuse to pay the £32m asking price, or did the striker turn us down? Who knows, maybe I’m looking into it too much but the whole Higuain saga was strange to me. We were so close to doing the deal so surely we wouldn’t have pulled out just because Madrid upped the price. We would have done the same thing in their position and let’s face it, Higuain is worth £32m in today’s market. I’d rather we spent £32m on him than the £50m we’re being quoted for Suarez any day.

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What do you make of the Higuain saga? Do you think we refused to meet his asking price, or the player turned us down?

14 Comments

  1. Milk

    August 2, 2013 at 10:28 am

    I think you should check your understanding for what people said! We all know that we reached an agreement with higuine before cavani sold to psg and he was willing to join arsenal if they agreed with madrid. And from what you posted as his comment, there is nothing that indicate he snub arsenal for napoli or arsenal walked out from the negotiation! You are too stupid to believe whatever the media write or said or what a player talked! Stupidity will arise from hate for someone or something and i cant believe that you are an arsenal fan and said those stupid things! Wusha

    • Chris

      August 2, 2013 at 1:46 pm

      I believe RM upped the price and Wenger walked away in disapproval. He also walked away from Cahill when he disapproved of the Bolton chairman made public how low Arsenal’s offer was. We don’t know how many other times he has walked away for some reason. So Arsene has felt good about his principles. But has it done the Arsenal Club any good ? NO !! In fact he seems naive in the transfer market. He has control over far too much at the Club and does not know how to react in a situation which he does not control. He should do like lots of other Managers … say who he needs and why … then leave a Director to negotiate. He should also leave Bould to do a lot more of the coaching.

  2. the Dude

    August 2, 2013 at 10:30 am

    Well he’s not going to say I really wanted to sign for Arsenal, but they wouldn’t meet the asking price so, I had to settle for Napoli now is he.

  3. Millz

    August 2, 2013 at 10:42 am

    At which point is his statement did he say he rejected arsenal? All he said was positive things about Napoli, which is to be expected. Poor anti-arsenal article, trying to anger fans by making them think players are snubbing us. Fact is, £31m for Higuain was WAY too much. Glad we didn’t pay Madrid a penny, they have to be the most immoral club in Europe.

  4. Useful101

    August 2, 2013 at 11:01 am

    Oh! R madrid an immoral FC that pretends to be righteous what a dirty way of doing business am happy we opted out of that bag of rubbish I personally won’t be part of it.

  5. Solomon

    August 2, 2013 at 11:10 am

    Guys let us come alive here. The bottom line is that we lost out on Higuain. It does not make financial sense if we have to spend 50m on Suarez and we could not spend 32m on Higuain. 50m would have gave us Higuain, Williams and Ceaser. Now we have not even signed a single player and we say we want to compete.

    • Cheadle

      August 2, 2013 at 2:33 pm

      Do you know that 10 extra goals distributed equally among 5 of our draws and 5 of our losses would have earned us 15 extra points last season enough to win the EPL. YES we have goal scorers and season highlight reel looks good but the stats show that we did not enough goals, we scored 72 and conceded 37 (Man U Scored 86 and let in 43 they won the league cos the scored the most goals!!!!). For a team that finished 7th Liverpool had an abnormally high goals for: 71 (5th highest but poorly distributed). Suarez scored 23 of those goals. I rate Suarez as a 30 plus Goals/season striker if he stays disciplined. If the remains at Liverpool they might just break into top four. If he comes to Arsenal we would mount a significant title challenge . Higuain would need at least 1 season to figure things. Suarez is already there. Liverpool are right to want to keep him and Arsenal are not crazy to want him

  6. Solomon

    August 2, 2013 at 11:13 am

    why are we referring to Madrid as immoral? They believe that they don’t have to sell and if they do, then is better for them to sell high. look at Liverpool and Suarez, if it is one of our players, by now we would have conceded and part away with such a player. A club with ambition will do everything possible to hold on to their valuable player. They will first hike the price and take it from there. Why didn’t we agree fee with Madrid and sign the player before Napoli came knocking? So lets blame our board and not Madrid for our loss.

  7. TrueRed

    August 2, 2013 at 11:20 am

    None of us know what really went on. All that we have read is made up or re-circulated by newspaper reporters. Only when a story appears on Arsenal.com can we be sure what has happened. I am afraid we are all sucked in to believing these stories because we would like some of them to be true.

  8. Darlingbudsofarse

    August 2, 2013 at 11:39 am

    He was right to turn us down as we are now rapidly becoming the butt of the whole wide world! Wenger out!!!!!!

    • Mistamonn

      August 2, 2013 at 1:16 pm

      You have said the most sensible thing so far dude ( or babe).

  9. LB

    August 2, 2013 at 11:48 am

    Contrary to what ‘Millz’ and ‘Milk’ have to say above, Higuain would rightly attract thirty million in today’s cash hungry market for top quality proven strikers. As a Gunner of some 40 years, I’d much rather have parted with 30 mill for him over 50 mill for Suarez, period !
    So, where are we now on Suarez ? Pretty much nowhere, as Arsenal have shot themselves in the foot again with the LFC board – it wasn’t smart to offer the penny over the clause and expect to thereafter deal with an aimable club ? Real frigging stupid and just showed our manager’s niavety when dealing with serious money. Now, we are left relying on the player to force his way out of the club … which won’t happen, especially if RM fail in their bid for Bale and then turn their attention to Suarez, as his response will then be ‘ Arsenal who ?’.
    Realistically, I’d look at Saldago, Sanchez and, much closer to home, Bentekke, especially Bentekke. Any of these strikers could be bought for around £20 mill and that would leave the miney we need to still buy urgently needed quality players such as DM ( Fellani ), CB, Winger and keeper.

  10. stan brigdon

    August 2, 2013 at 12:51 pm

    Why on earth would any world class player now want to come to Arsenal. Our cred and standing have become so devalued as a club without ambition, that no top quality player would want to invest his career in a club that refuses to invest in itself.

    • tinalex

      August 2, 2013 at 2:30 pm

      So in your deluded world Napoli is a better club than Arsenal. Some little research does help before vomiting your ignorance on the net. Napoli has won one trophy in the last 25 years and has been in and out of the Serie A on a number of times. Added to that they have also gone bankrupt in a number of occasions. So if that is your definition of a valued club then I need say no more.

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