According to reports, Arsenal failed with a club-record bid for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the summer.
Arsenal’s pursuit of a striker this summer was well-documented. First, Jamie Vardy opted to stay at Leiecester despite manager Claudio Ranieri admitting that they would have to sell him if he wanted to leave.
Olympique Lyonnais also rejected a £30 million bid for striker Alexandre Lacazette, with Lyon publicly admitting that the bid was not high enough.
Arsenal were reportedly interested in Gonzalo Higuain, before the Argentinian made a big-money move to Italian giants Juventus putting that rumour to bed.
Arsene Wenger eventually signed Spaniard Lucas Perez from Deportivo La Coruna for £17m, a move which was underwhelming to most supporters given their previous targets.
But, it has now emerged that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was Arsenal’s first choice, with a club-record bid of £80 million being rejected outright for the Borussia Dortmund front-man.
According to Sportwitness, that claim comes from a transfer intermediary – who is basically a well-connected individual tasked with putting clubs in touch with each other in the hope of getting a percentage of any deal that goes through – Vincenzo Morabito.
In an interview with IamNaples.it, he revealed that he was trying to broker a deal between Napoli and Dortmund for Aubameyang.
“Sometime ago, I called Zork, Dortmund’s director of football, to talk about Aubameyang, but the ‘no’ was absolutely categorical. I know that this summer, Arsenal offered €90m for Aubameyang, but Borussia didn’t want to hear anything about it,” he said.
However, Dortmund clearly would not budge on any move for Aubameyang, and decided to keep the striker at any cost if Morabito is to be believed.
It seems surprising that Arsenal would bid that much for Aubameyang, given that they also made two big money moves for Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi. But, given their long-term hunt for a striker, it is possible that Wenger decided to use whatever funds he had available to him.
Aubameyang has continued his spectacular form from last season, scoring 14 goals in 13 games this season.
