‘Kept turning him down’: Journalist says £6m Arsenal player could’ve ended up at Manchester United

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Gabriel Martinelli is now one of world football’s true superstars.

The Brazilian made a massive impact at Arsenal this season, and now, he’s a fully-fledged international for arguably the greatest national team in football history.

Martinelli has been a revelation since signing for Arsenal, but his career very nearly went in another direction.

Indeed, according to Charles Watts, speaking on The Gooners Pod, Martinelli very nearly ended up signing for Manchester United at one point.

Watts has just finished writing a book about this Arsenal team’s recent rise, and he shared some of the stories he gathered while writing this book on this charity stream.

Watts said that he wishes he’d have gone more in depth about Martinelli’s journey during his book, stating that he’d actually trained three times with Manchester United before moving to Arsenal, but, sadly, the Red Devils kept turning him down.

Martinelli could’ve signed for United

Watts shared what he knows about the £6m player.

“The stuff about how he had so many chances to come over here. He trained with Man United three times in a trial, he went to Barcelona. Everyone kept turning him down, and then Arsenal took that chance on him and he kept going and kept working hard. He wasn’t coming from a big Brazilian club either, he had that incredible work ethic and kept going and going,” Watts said.

Huge miss

Manchester United have had some pretty infamous transfer near misses in their history, but this may be the biggest of the bunch.

Indeed, Martinelli is well on his way to footballing superstardom, and he could well go down as one of the best players Man United failed to sign.

One thing is for sure, United will be kicking themselves for not signing Martinelli when they had the chance.