Arsenal’s pursuit of Albert Sambi Lokonga appears to have gone a bit Bruno Fernandes to Tottenham Hotspur, although there’s likely to be a happier ending.
In the summer 2019 transfer window, Tottenham went through a saga to sign Giovani Lo Celso from Real Betis.
Spurs ended up getting the player in the end, taking him on a loan deal with a complicated purchase clause. At one point during the negotiations with Betis, Tottenham turned their attention to Fernandes instead, seeing him as an alternative to Lo Celso.
Tottenham’s offer was later confirmed, and seemingly mocked, by Sporting president Frederico Varandas, who said:
“The only serious proposal, which was still only verbal, was a €45m bid from Tottenham for Bruno Fernandes, plus €20m in goals.
“Twenty million in goals which were about Tottenham becoming the Premier League winners, which they never were, and winning the Champions League, which has also never happened. So I found these goals extremely imposs…. difficult to accomplish. And I understood not to sell Bruno Fernandes.”
Arsenal appear to have tried similar with Lokonga, report Voetbal Krant. It’s said the Gunners had wanted to pay less than €15m for the player initially, whilst adding some ambitious bonuses to the deal.
One of those was related to Mikel Arteta’s side winning the league, apparently in the next campaign, with Voetbal Krant saying: ‘The chance that Arsenal will win the Premier League next season is very small.’
Anderlecht knocked this back and are now set to get a much better deal. The report states Lokonga ‘will play for Arsenal next season’ and adds ‘the transfer is almost complete’.
This one looks like having a happy ending, even if the Gunners tried some cheeky bonus offers.
