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“It’s True I Had An Offer From Arsenal”

By on September 18, 2013

Some interesting transfer gossip for you to digest as we wait for tonight’s Champions League opener against Marseille.

Atletico Madrid defender Juan Francisco Torres – more commonly known as Juanfran – has revealed that he turned down the chance to join Arsenal in the summer.

We were strongly linked with the Spanish international at the start of August and it seems the newspapers got this one right as the 28-year-old has confirmed he rejected what sounds like a lucrative contract offer from us in order to remain in La Liga with Madrid.

He told the Mirror:

“It is true that I had an offer from Arsenal that any player would have liked to have accepted,”

“But I am very happy here.

“For me, as everyone knows, there is no better club than Atletico.”

Juanfran is a right-back who’s been hugely impressive at the Vicente Calderon since making the move from Osauna two years ago and he was named in the Spain squad for the 2012 European Championships.

Many fans expected Arsene Wenger to bring in a new centre-back this summer and that may have initially been the plan, but with Bacary Sagna proving to be more than capable of filling in at centre-half, it seems Wenger switched his focus to bringing in another right-back and Juanfran was obviously one player he was interested in.

However, no new right-back was brought in and my feeling is that Wenger decided against bringing in another defender after signing Mathieu Flamini as the Frenchman is capable of filling in at both full-back positions if needed.

Carl Jenkinson is progressing well so right-back is not an area that desperately needs addressing, but it may become an issue if we get a spate of injuries. Currently we only have 7 first team defenders – Jenskinon, Sagna, Vermaelen, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs and Monreal.

All are top quality but we have very little back-up in reserve should we get hit by a similar injury crisis like we currently have in midfield/attack, so it would have been useful to bring in another body.

Check out more Arsenal transfer gossip

Do you think we should have signed another defender in the summer?

One Comment

  1. Soccerisma

    September 18, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Perhaps the offer was made too late in the window. That is how Arsenal lose half of their targets. the other half, they do not pay the asking price.
    Should act swiftly in winter