Real Sociedad president Jokin Aperribay has admitted Arsenal’s move for Mikel Merino forced them into a late deal for West Ham United’s Nayef Aguerd.
El Diario Vasco cover comments from the Sociedad president today after he appeared in the presentation press conference for Aguerd and fellow signing Orri Óskarsson.
Aguerd joined the Spanish side on loan from West Ham on August 30th having been deemed surplus to requirements by the Hammers.
They spent big on their defence this summer, signing Max Kilman from Wolves and Jean-Clair Todibo from Nice, opening up the possibility of Aguerd departing.
He eventually did in the loan to Real Sociedad, but they couldn’t move until the end of the window after a busy summer themselves.
They saw two key players depart with Robin Le Normand heading to Atletico Madrid for €34.5m on July 27th and Mikel Merino following him a month later when he joined Arsenal in a €32m deal.
That transfer took a while to get going, with Arsenal and Real Sociedad haggling for weeks over the midfielder’s asking price before eventually getting it done.
But it seems that delay held up Sociedad, who had to scramble late on to get Aguerd out of West Ham according to Aperribay.
“We are very happy that you are here. We really wanted you to come,” he told both playes.
“The last few hours we were waiting for everything to go well and I want to thank you for everything you did to make everything go well. I hope you have a great stay in San Sebastián.
“We had little time and had to act quickly. We decided to wait until the end of the market to opt for a loan and the player who most convinced us was Nayef. In the last two days we were clear that if Nayef did not come, no one was going to come.
“If we had not reached an agreement with Arsenal, we would not have made either of these two signings.”
