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Wenger and Alonso on two transfer near misses between Liverpool and Arsenal

From Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Cristiano Ronaldo, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has often been candid...



Wenger and Alonso on two trans...
Soccer

Wenger and Alonso on two transfer near misses between Liverpool and Arsenal

From Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Cristiano Ronaldo, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has often been candid about the ones that got away in the transfer market.

Some of the more recent ones involving elite players involve Liverpool and the infamous Luis Suarez bid from the summer of 2013 is one Wenger has been discussing with beIN Sports.

Arsenal famously bid £40 million... and one pound in an attempt to trigger a contract clause they believed existed in Suarez's contract.

However, the end result was that it created bad blood between Arsenal and Liverpool with the latter's owner John W Henry not hiding his disdain for the Gunners: 

Wenger outlined what happened on that occasion: "[Suarez] was very close. We had an agreement with the player. We had been wrongly advised that he had a clause, with a minimal clause, but we had an agreement with the player. You can ask him. I'm convinced he wanted to join us and then they sold him. They kept him one more year, improved his contract and promised to sell him a year later to a club abroad."

Meanwhile, Spain World Cup winner Xabi Alonso, who is retiring at the end of this season, was another Liverpool who could have made the move to Arsenal four years earlier.

The ex-Liverpool midfielder explained why he instead ended up moving to Real Madrid in an interview with The Liverpool Echo.

"I was really close to Juventus and I was close to Arsenal," said the Bayern Munich midfielder.

"But, it was just £3m. Liverpool were asking £18m and both offered £15m – so that’s why it didn’t happen."

Xabi Alonso's Liverpool departure precipitated a fall

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