Report: Arsenal actually held talks to sign 'special' player in January, then he went and joined Tottenham instead

By Shamanth Jayaram

Dejan Kulusevski has been a star for Tottenham Hotspur since he joined them, but he could’ve easily been an Arsenal player now.

The Swede was heavily linked with a move away from Juventus even before the January transfer window opened.

Arsenal were rumoured to be interested in his services for weeks, but in the end, Spurs snapped him on an 18-month loan deal with an option to make that permanent for £29.2 million. (talkSPORT)

He is proving to be a tremendous signing for Antonio Conte’s side now.

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Arsenal held talks to sign Dejan Kulusevski before he joined Tottenham

According to a report from The Evening Standard, Arsenal really explored the possibility of signing a wide forward after their dream of securing Dusan Vlahovic’s signature was crushed.

Kulusevski on a loan deal was one of the options Mikel Arteta and Edu considered, and they even held preliminary talks with the player and his club before Spurs came into the frame.

The report claims that the reason Arsenal backed out of a potential deal is that Juventus wanted to include multiple concrete clauses to make the move permanent in the future. The Gunners didn’t want that at all.

Tottenham then moved in for him and the deal was wrapped up in the last few days of the January window.

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Arsenal’s options out wide at the moment include Bukayo Saka and Nicolas Pepe on the right, and Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe on the opposite side.

That’s more than enough for Arteta until the end of the season but there’s a good chance that Pepe will consider his options in the summer after failing to feature regularly for the Gunners this season.

Kulusevski, labelled as a ‘special player’ by Chris Sutton, would’ve been brilliant for Arsenal in that position and the way he has started his Tottenham career shows that he could turn out to be a massive player for them in a few years’ time.

Only time will tell if Arsenal will regret their decision about passing up on Kulusevski.

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