Speaking to The Sun, former Arsenal scout Gilles Grimandi has been discussing his time working with the Gunners and Kylian Mbappe.
The scout spent a number of years at the north London club, and, as you can imagine, he has a number of stories about transfer near misses.
Sadly, according to Grimandi, Arsenal missed out on one of the best players in the world a few years ago as they tried to sign Kylian Mbappe back when he was a teenager in 2013.
Unfortunately, Arsenal couldn’t convince Mbappe to sign and he’s since gone on to be a World Cup winner and a World Cup Golden Boot winner.
Arsena missed out on Mbappe
Grimandi discussed Arsenal’s pursuit of Mbappe..
“The job of scouting is about finding but also missing players. For me, it is Kylian Mbappe. We just could not convince him,” Grimandi said.
“He was out of contract in June 2013 and we met him in February. If we could have convinced him to join, he would have changed the club — but he then decided on Monaco.
“Arsenal were not always playing their best so it was quite complicated. At first it was easy, as soon as we talked to a player he wanted to sign it.
“However, if you are not getting results it is difficult to bring top players to help the team.”
What if
Could you imagine how the footballing world would look if Arsenal had signed Mbappe at that point in time?
It would have taken a few years for him to make his debut at the Emirates, but he had the ability to completely transform that team at the time.
Imagine a front two of Mbappe and a prime Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, they would’ve been nigh on unstoppable.
Perhaps Arsenal would have won more trophies if Mbappe had joined back in 2013.
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