Arsenal target Thomas Lemar scores a SCREAMER for France
So says journalist Duncan Castles, who claims Arsenal were always going to struggle to sign Lemar before the transfer deadline.
Arsenal left it too late to land the Monaco winger on Thursday despite agreeing a £92million fee in the early afternoon.
The deal was pulled when the Gunners claimed they didn’t have time to discuss terms with the player.
And Castles says that is exactly the same problem United had in 2015 when trying to swap David De Gea with Keylor Navas after agreeing terms with Real Madrid.
“Arsenal's briefing after it fell through was that there wasn't time to complete the deal,” Castles said on The Transfer Window podcast.
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Arsenal failed to sign Thomas Lemar on deadline day
“At 1.30pm a fee was agreed with Monaco.
“Three hours later the people negotiating the deal were waiting for Lemar to make a decision. It came down purely to Thomas Lemar not wanting to go to Arsenal at that stage of the transfer window.
“It's not known whether he'd agreed earlier in the window when Arsenal were interested in him to come.
“But then as interest came from other clubs - Manchester United and Liverpool, who bid €80m and wouldn't go any higher for the player - if that changed his mind.
“That meant he didn't want to join Arsenal who had started so badly this season.
“Either way, the point was if you're trying to do a deal like that you have to know the player is going to come to you.
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Manchester United didn't get paperwork through in time to sign Real Madrid's Keylor Navas
“It's reminiscent of David De Gea two summers ago, with the partial swap deals of De Gea to Madrid and Keylor Navas as Louis van Gaal's recommendation as a replacement.
“Real Madrid did all the work in advance but were shocked to discover that while Manchester United had agreed the sale, they'd done nothing to set up with Keylor Navas, the goalkeeper they were going to sign.
“They didn't get the paperwork through before the deadline. It was purely because Manchester United had not done their homework.
“Here you've got another major Premier League club that would blow their precious spending apart.
“And yet the basics of this were appalling.”
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