Arsene Wenger admits he considered signing http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Arsenal-c38429 - Premier league Update
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, has gone on to admit that he considered signing Manchester City midfielder Owen Hargreaves at one point in the past.
The manager has made these comments only hours before his side take on Manchester City in the Carling Cup and are more than likely to go up against Owen Hargreaves as well.
The manager has admitted that he was always a fan of the midfielder and had been watching him throughout his career at Bayern Munich. However, when Manchester United decided to make a move for him, the manager just wasn’t ready to bring in the player and
hence went on to lose the opportunity to land him.
Wenger then claimed that he had a few thoughts about trying to lure the midfielder in when he was a free agent, but once again he was a little too slow while pursuing the player and ended up losing out on him as City went ahead and signed him.
When talking about Hargreaves, Wenger is quoted to have said: "When he played at Bayern Munich we followed him very closely but it was a big transfer - I think he was sold to Manchester United for £17 million at the time and he only had one year left on
his contract. So we didn't move in for him at that time.”
The manager then went on to admit that the young players developing at the club forced him to slow down his thoughts about bringing in the player and this eventually proved to be a massive speed bump, as it resulted in the player going to City instead.
"In the summer, you consider it but we had players like [Emmanuel] Frimpong and [Francis] Coquelin coming back - [Alex] Song and [Abou] Diaby in these defensive positions where we were not really in the need."
At the moment, Arsenal seem to have more than their ample share of midfielders, who can go on and run the show for the team over the course of the coming years. The likes of Frimpong, Coquelin, Song and Diaby, are all more than capable of playing as holding
midfielders for the team and from the looks of things, they could prove to be as good as Hargreaves on the long run.
Nonetheless, at the same time, Hargreaves’ constant injuries would have also made him rather useless for the Gunners, which is why their decision to not sign him seems to be the smarter one.
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