According to Corriere Dello Sport, Arsenal scouted Ivan Ilic earlier this season.
The Serbian midfielder was reportedly a player the Gunners had a look at when the north London club sent scouts to watch Lazio vs Hellas Verona back in September.
So, how did Ilic get on in this game? Well, unfortunately for the 21-year-old, he seemingly failed to impress.
Indeed, his stats from that September showing don’t make for great reading.
Ilic was pretty much a non-entity as Verona slumped to a 2-0 loss against Lazio.
He saw plenty of the ball, having more touches than any other player on his team, but he failed to make anything happen when he did get it.
He didn’t carry the ball very often, with 43 of his 58 touches being passes, and sadly, a fair few of those didn’t find their mark, with over 25 per cent of his passes failing to find the mark.
Only one of those passes was categorised a key pass, while his more expansive play was also poor with only four of his 10 combined attempts at long balls or crosses came off.
Ilic didn’t know it, but this was his chance to impress Arsenal and potentially earn a move to one of England’s elite clubs, but he’s blown that chance now.
Interestingly, Arsenal were also looking at Sergej Milinkovic-Savic during that game, and he performed much better than Ilic. He grabbed WhoScored’s star man award and picked up an assist in an impressive win for Lazio.
Ilic is a talented player, but you need to perform in front of the scouts if you’re thinking about earning a move to a club like Arsenal.
Sadly, the Serbian’s chance at a move to north London may have been and gone.
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