As is now very public knowledge, AS Roma were somewhat interested in bringing Jack Wilshere on loan from Arsenal on transfer deadline day.
The midfielder explained his decision to join Bournemouth was taken after a chat with Eddie Howe, but for a while, he looked set to join Wojciech Szczesny in Italy for the coming season.
Il Tempo, however, say it was never that close, as multiple factors played against Wilshere ever making the trip to Italy to complete a Serie A move.
Firstly, Arsenal wanted €3m up front for the loan, as well as Roma to cover all of the England international’s wages for the duration of his stay in Italy.
Secondly, the relationship between the two clubs was already a bit frayed after the near never-ending back and forth regarding the aforementioned Polish goalkeeper’s return to Roma.
Finally, Arsenal weren’t best pleased when the Serie A club rejected their ‘monster’ offer for Kostas Manolas 10 days previous.
The amount isn’t revealed, but if the London club wanted the Greek defender, they would have had to pay far over the odds for it to make sense to Roma considering half of the transfer fee would have gone to Olympiakos.
If all of this is true, it’s no surprise Wilshere ended up remaining in England.
