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“There Was An Approach From Arsenal And I Wanted To Go There”

By on July 21, 2014

Ivory Coast international Serge Aurier has confirmed he held talks with Arsenal earlier this summer and was keen on making the move to north London.

The 21-year-old was hotly tipped to join Arsenal earlier in the summer when Arsene Wenger had supposedly made him his number one target to replace Bacary Sagna.

However, despite Aurier impressing at the World Cup, our interest seemed to fade as we switched our attention to Mathieu Debuchy and we eventually signed the Frenchman from Newcastle in a £10m deal last week.

Aurier has now confirmed that he held talks with Arsenal after we made a formal approach for his services and he was keen on the move, but in the end it wasn’t to be.

French outlet Get France Football broke the news on Twitter earlier:

I must admit I was slightly disappointed when we dropped our interest in Aurier as he’s a hugely exciting full-back, but Debuchy was the ‘sensible’ choice and as Arsene said, he seemed like the natural successor to Sagna.

There are some who feel we should still sign Aurier as a long-term replacement for 29-year-old Debuchy. Which isn’t a bad shout, but I can’t see Arsene spending over £8m on a back-up full-back this summer when we have so many other positions to strengthen.

Hopefully we don’t live to regret missing out on Aurier though. I’m sure he’ll be a fine signing for someone this summer, most likely PSG…