Over the past few months, sporadic articles emerged about interest from both Arsenal and Liverpool in Bordeaux’s Gaëtan Laborde.
Despite not being the most prolific of strikers, the two sides clearly saw something they liked, with the Gunners possibly thinking about the post-Giroud era, with the former Montpellier forward now on the wrong side of 30.
Still, nothing came of them, and these were swept under the carpet, with the general consensus being that there was little in the stories.
However, the player was asked whether interest from Arsenal and Liverpool was just rumours in an interview with Football365 ahead of the Ligue 1 side’s game against Videoton in the Europa League.
He said: “No, there was real interest, but nothing official. I don’t let it bother me, but it’s true that it’s flattering. It adds to your confidence. It’s always good to be followed by clubs like that.
“They’re two big clubs, but to go as far as saying there were official bids… I don’t know anything more and I don’t want to think about it too much. I’m at Bordeaux and there’s a lot of important stuff coming up. I’m focused on that. I have an agent that deals with the rest.”
Confirming his future was, for now at least, with the Ligue 1 outfit, the 23-year-old will now be striving to improve on last season’s output, where he scored 13 goals and picked up five assists in 42 appearances, in order to impress Arsène Wenger and Jürgen Klopp even more.
Unfortunately for him and Bordeaux, Videoton were the ones to go through to the next round of the Europa League on away goals.
