Arsenal: Failure To Sign Jonny Evans A Massive Success
Arsenal didn’t sign Jonny Evans this summer. They signed Shkodran Mustafi instead. That doesn’t mean they failed to land Evans at all.
I remember in that final week in August when Arsenal supporters were going mad because it felt eerily like Wenger had no plans to sign another necessary defender (or striker, for that matter). Everyone that we were linked to suddenly had their prices jacked up because Wenger’s “desperation” was known.
It felt like the Shkodran Mustafi deal had fallen flat on it’s face. It was like another Jamie Vardy (only more important). With the defender seemingly wrapped up, everything went quiet and we learned that, in fact, he wasn’t wrapped up at all.
Popular: Cultured Mustafi The Perfect Fit
That’s when the alternatives started rolling in. Who could Wenger land that was cheaper and yet still experienced? The list was fairly short, but the topper of the ‘alternatives’ list was Jonny Evans, the Manchester United reject, Ireland international and current Pulis disciple.
But naturally, since it was Tony Pulis, it wasn’t going to be easy and he jacked up the price on Evans to make it more difficult to land his prized defender.
It never happened. Why? Because Wenger landed the superior defender, the man they wanted from the start, Shkodran Mustafi.
That being said, all news about Jonny Evans should be forever removed from being linked to Arsenal. The Gunner’s have, when healthy, five Premier League defenders. You don’t need much more than that. So why is the Telegraph spewing tweets like this?
EXCLUSIVE: Jonny Evans set for West Brom pay rise after Arsenal failed to sign defender https://t.co/BHtmMHXEo5 pic.twitter.com/GG2iVFWsYx
— Telegraph Football (@TeleFootball) September 5, 2016
Arsenal ‘failing’ to sign defender Jonny Evans was one of the bigger successes of the summer. In his stead we landed a 24 year old World Cup winner that is going to grow into an amazing defender next to Laurent Koscielny.
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Jonny Evans is 28, never lived up to United’s expectations and was only valued because of his Premier League experience.
Back in the moment, I accused Tony Pulis of being the Grinch to Wenger’s Christmas for raising Evans price up to £25m, an outrageous price, but I see now that he was unwittingly doing Wenger a favor. If you’re going to spend that much money on a defender, might as well be the defender you actually wanted (Mustafi) and not the one that topped the alternatives list (Evans).
This is a poor depiction of how the move ended up not going through. Wenger did not fail to sign Evans, they succeeded in signing someone better.
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