Former Juventus, Chelsea and Napoli forward has opened up on his confusion after missing out on a move to Premier League giants Arsenal in the summer of 2013, speaking to TYC Sports.
During the latter days of Arsene Wenger’s North London reign, it was not exactly uncommon for Arsenal to drag out a transfer saga.
Back in July 2013, The Gunners appeared to have a deal for the then-Real Madrid hitman all-but tied up. Higuain The Guardian said, would sign a £100,000-a-week deal while joining for a bargain sum of £23 million.
How times have changed. These days, you’d be happy to get get a promising Championship centre-back for such a fee.
But, despite being reportedly ‘on the verge’ of putting pen to paper with Arsenal, Higuain would end up in Italy rather than the English capital.
Why did Arsenal not sign Gonzalo Higuain?
Per Goal, despite agreeing personal terms with Higuain, Arsenal were blown out the water when Napoli stumped up a far superior bid in excess of £30 million.
And the fact that Wenger would sign his former Madrid team-mate Mesut Ozil for an even bigger fee just a few weeks later understandably left Higuain scratching his head, even if the German was a more established, high-profile talent at the time.
“I remember that I was on the verge of going to Arsenal (before) I went to Napoli,” Higuain recalls. “They said I was too expensive. And a few days later, they bought Ozil!”
While Arsenal would drift further and further away from the Premier League elite in the intervening years – with Ozil dividing supporters like few other players in the modern era – Higuain established himself as one of the leading centre-forwards in world football.
In fact, no one in Serie A history has scored more in one campaign than Higuain’s 36 during 2015/16.
After rather hit-and-miss spells at AC Milan, Juventus and Chelsea, the now-34-year-old Higuain is playing his trade under, ahem, Phil Neville at Inter Miami.
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