Six Degrees of Arsene Wenger

Posted by Rob Shepherd on Tuesday, July 4, 2017

You’ve heard of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon right? The idea of the game is that you can name any film star or movie and within six acquaintance links, you can get back to Kevin Bacon.

For example, Elvis Presley starred in a 1969 film starring Edward Asner, Edward Asner was in the 1991 film JFK with Kevin Bacon – easy!

In football, we have a similar game. Name a footballer, any footballer and the chances are that Arsene Wenger will tell you that he has tried to sign him at least once in his career.

The Ones That Got Away

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who is a bit surprised that Wenger is so public about the players he “tried” to sign. To me, it’s a bit like bragging about all the good-looking girls that turned you down, hardly something to shout about. Anyway, I digress, let’s look at the ones that slipped through Wenger’s fingers.

Peter Cech

Now this story actually has a happy ending for Wenger as he signed Peter Cech from Chelsea in 2015 for £7 million. However, he could have been playing for Arsenal 15 years earlier but a pesky work permit rejection scuppered the deal.

Cech said of the situation, “There was a chance before I went to France that I could sign for Arsenal but I was only 18 or 19 and at that time Czech Republic were not in the European Union. You needed a work permit and the conditions were to play 75 per cent of the first-team games for the national team, which at the time was impossible for me to get. In the end, I went to France because I couldn’t get a work permit.”

Gareth Bale

This is one of my favourite ones! Remember Gareth Bale, the player that Real Madrid paid £85.3 million for? Well Wenger had been keeping tabs on Gareth when he was at Southampton. At the time, Gareth was playing left-back rather than the midfield position that he made his own and instead of Bale, Wenger opted for Theo Walcott. Wenger said of Bale later;

“We didn’t take him as we had Ashley Cole and Gael Clichy and didn’t want another left-back, I must confess it was a huge mistake as he can play in midfield. He struggled at the start at Tottenham, then they moved him to midfield and he has done exceptionally well. The career of a player sometimes depends on playing in the right position.” – ouch.

Vincent Kompany

Kompany is a beast of a player and has all the attributes that you want in a battling defender, tough as old boots with an eye for a pass and loves to get stuck in, he has been pivotal to Manchester City’s recent success.

Bizarrely, it was Kompany’s agent who put the brakes on him moving to Arsenal. Top clubs such as Real Madrid, Barcelona as well as Arsenal were interested in Kompany but Jacques Lichtenstein who represents Kompany didn’t feel he was ready to play in top leagues so told his client to go to Hamburg instead to get experience. Two years later and City swooped for him for a modest £6 million.

Christiano Ronaldo

“Regrets, I’ve had a few”, sang Frank Sinatra in 1969, if that song had been released 30 years later, he could have been singing about Arsene Wenger’s failure to sign undoubtedly one of the best players on the planet.

“My biggest regret, I was so close, to signing Cristiano Ronaldo, and not only did I not get him he signed for Manchester United, so that of course still hurts today,” admitted Wenger. At United, Ronaldo won nine trophies in a six-year spell at the club but it is his sub-human form at Real Madrid that will hurt Wenger more, in this seasons Champions League he scored 13 goals in 12 appearances and his league form is just as good with 25 goals in 29 starts. I think I can still hear Wenger sobbing on this one.

Yaya Toure

Wenger was keen to do a deal to bring Toure in alongside brother Kolo who was already at Arsenal but once again he was foiled by the dreaded work permit. Due to this Yaya signed instead for Ukrainian club Metalurh Donetsk.

“But let’s not forget that Yaya Toure had an agreement with us and it’s not because we did not want to sign him that he went to Ukraine. We had to wait for his passport in Belgium. We have made mistakes [with transfers], but this was not a mistake. He preferred to go to Metalurh Donetsk because he could go there without a passport.”

Once again, Manchester City would be the ones to benefit and would eventually sign Yaya.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Zlatan is football’s Chuck Norris, a player so immensely confident that it is bordering on arrogance but there is no question to the talent Zlatan possesses. When at Swedish club Malmo, Wenger contacted Ibrahimovic and offered the then 21-year-old a trial. Rather than accept the trial, Zlatan was insulted.

“I didn’t have a trial – I came for talks with Arsenal. But Wenger wanted me to do a trial and I said: ‘I don’t do trials. You know who I am.”, he would go on to say the infamous words, “Zlatan doesn’t do auditions!”.

Zlatan joined Ajax instead where he scored 35 goals in 74 appearances. Even in his twilight years Ibrahimovic is still banging in the goals, 113 goals for PSG in 122 appearances and last season he hit 17 league goals in 28 appearances.

Paul Pogba

When Manchester United re-signed Paul Pogba for a world record fee of £89 million, Wenger must have been in tears. Pogba has been courted by Arsenal since his days as a teenager at French side Le Havre and was narrowly beaten to his signature in 2009 by Alex Ferguson.

When Pogba’s relationship with Ferguson broke down, Arsene once again made his move but was beaten, this time by Juventus.

“Things happened very quickly. We were interested in him,” Wenger said in 2014. “We tried to get him to come here. But he very quickly signed for Juventus.” Another near-miss from the Frenchman.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy

If you remember “Pizzagate” or “Battle of the Buffet”, you will remember that there was no Manchester United player hated more than Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Wenger publicly stated that Ruud was a cheat and there was genuine friction there.

This may have been a case of wounded pride, as Alex Ferguson wrote in his book, “Arsene had a thing about Van Nistelrooy. I remember him saying he’d had a chance to sign Ruud but had decided he was not good enough to play for Arsenal.”

Not good enough? Hmmm 150 goals in 219 games and winning every trophy in English football would suggest otherwise but whatever helps you sleep at night Arsene!

Lionel Messi

C’mon stop laughing, I can hear you! I’m serious!

Wenger says that he tried to sign Messi when he was in the Barcelona youth team (Messi that is, not Wenger). It wasn’t just Messi either, he tried to swoop for three players, Gerard Pique and Cesc Fabregas as well as Messi.

According to newspaper reports, the obstacles that prevented Messi from signing included the lack of a flat for his family and the difficulty in obtaining a work permit.

Wenger denied this was the cause but did admit to trying to sign the Argentinian, “I refused nothing,” he said. “In the end, he was not looking to move. It was the period Fabregas came. They played together in the same team. We wanted Fabregas, Messi and Pique. It was not completely down to a flat. In the end, Messi was comfortable at Barcelona.”

After writing this article, I felt a bit deflated. Why had Wenger not tried to sign me? Then I remembered it’s probably because I’m middle aged, fat and shit at football, but still….