Inter Milan pull out of deal for Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi as Serie A club director reveals: 'When we saw their demands, we let it go'

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Inter Milan director Piero Ausilio has revealed they opted to pull out of a deal for Germany defender Shkodran Mustafi after Arsenal set the bar too high on the transfer fee.

The Italian side had offered a £4.6million loan fee with an option to buy for £23m, with Juventus also interested, but Arsenal were holding out for a fee in the region of the £35m spent on him last summer.

The Gunners had hoped for major squad investment over the summer, but the club recouped £70.5m in sales to offset the £52.7m spent on Alexandre Lacazette, meaning Arsenal made a net profit of £17.8m.

Inter Milan launched a deadline-day bid to sign Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi

Arsenal were keen to offload Mustafi on a permanent basis but Inter were not willing to agree

But Mustafi did not join the likes of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£40m), Wojciech Szczesny (£13.5m), Gabriel (£10m) and Kieran Gibbs (£7m) in leaving the Emirates Stadium this summer after Inter turned away from a deal. 

'The only negotiations we really entered into for a centre-back was Shkodran Mustafi, but when we saw his club's demands, we let it go,' Inter's director Ausilio said.

Mustafi, who has made one appearance this campaign, joined only last summer from Valencia, but Arsenal were willing to allow him to leave after one season.

The 25-year-old has made 31 appearances in total under Arsene Wenger but will now fight for his place until January with the German in competition with Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker and Rob Holding.

Mustafi will remain at Arsenal along with Alexis Sanchez on a day when deals didn't go through

Ausilio would have liked to have struck a deal for the former Sampdoria defender, but the Inter chief was delighted to have retained one of the club's key players.

'Keeping hold of Ivan Perisic was a great buy, really,' Ausilio added. 'We are convinced that we signed players who are suited to the project, as Inter have proved they are ready for the start of the season.

'Many players arrived, others have left, the squad is homogenous. We liked the idea of focusing on youngsters, including with investments like Yann Karamoh.

'We decided to do something simple, because just making changes for the sake of it was not of interest, so when we saw that certain objectives were unattainable.

'There are no regrets, we did things that were functional to the project and compatible with our circumstances. We signed midfielders, we brought in Karamoh and another interesting young players like Skriniar, who is performing well.' 

Inter managed to keep hold of Ivan Perisic despite continued interest from Manchester United

Inter Milan director Piero Ausilio is pleased with the business done by the club this summer