Exclusive: Arsenal expert on their top winger target before Sterling transfer, plus truth about Coman links
Arsenal FC expert Charles Watts has spoken exclusively to CaughtOffside to discuss the Raheem Sterling transfer deal following his surprise late loan move from Chelsea.
Sterling was not the top target in attack for the Gunners this summer, but he was snapped up as a market opportunity late on in the window when moves for other targets like Nico Williams didn’t work out.
However, it seems the Arsenal transfer rumours and links with Bayern Munich winger Kingsley Coman weren’t necessarily that accurate, with Watts unable to confirm if there was truth to the reported interest, or if it was just the work of his agent trying to get him a move.
“Raheem Sterling’s move was a classic case of reacting to an opportunity. Arsenal didn’t go into the summer window thinking about signing him, Edu openly admitted that himself when he spoke to the club’s media team soon after the window shut. But having been unable to add to their attacking depth, the opportunity was there just before the deadline to try and do a deal with Chelsea because of Sterling’s situation and Arsenal took full advantage of that,” Watts told CaughtOffside for his latest Daily Briefing column.
“Arsenal have landed themselves an excellent player, who can play anywhere across the frontline and who has the experience of winning four Premier League titles under his belt. And they have done it without having to pay a loan fee, without being tied into any sort of obligation to make the move permanent and by committing to only paying a fraction of his wages. It’s Chelsea who will still be covering the majority of them.
“So there’s no doubt it’s a good deal for Arsenal. The key thing is though that they need Sterling to rediscover his best form during the year that he is with the squad. Hopefully Mikel Arteta can find a way of doing that and the signs are good, given we know that Sterling credits Arteta for getting the best out of him while he was with Manchester City.”
Sterling transfer: Were Arsenal right to sign him over Williams or Coman?
He added: “It had started to look like they weren’t going to get anything done in terms of signing an attacker. Obviously Nico Williams was the player they would have loved to have signed, but that just wasn’t possible, so they had to react to what was out there.
“Kingsley Coman was also linked late on, but I don’t know if there was any truth in that. His representatives were certainly doing all they could late on in the window to try and get his name out there to see if they could engineer a move.”
Arsenal had a busy summer in the end, bringing in Sterling alongside Riccardo Calafiori, Mikel Merino and Neto, while big names like Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira left the Emirates Stadium.
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