Arsenal Transfers: 10 Players Wenger Should Have Signed
9. Kostas Manolas
Youd be forgiven for thinking that the Greece international actually signed for Arsenal, such was the insistence in internet gossip columns that Manolas was close to joining the red half of north London. Given Manolas relatively young age (23) he wouldve been the perfect replacement to the departed club captain Thomas Vermaelen as third choice centre back. With time on his side, he couldve learnt from the wise old head of Per Mertesacker and the impressive Laurent Koscielny before ultimately replacing the BFG in a couple of seasons or so. The, then, Olympiacos defender ended up moving to Serie A and joining AS Roma after the Italian outfit trumped Arsenals bid by in and around £2million the final fee was believed to be in the region of £10.5/11million. You can just picture Arsenes reaction now when Olympiacos contacted him saying hed need to stump up a little bit of extra cash; this being the same Arsene Wenger that didnt feel Juan Mata was worth an extra £1.5million the summer the Spanish international joined Chelsea Arsenal had agreed a £22million with his club at the time Valencia before Chelsea stole in with an eleventh hour bid.
