Last week, it emerged Chelsea had beaten Arsenal and Tottenham to the signature of Wolves’ winger Pedro Neto, and the Blues had agreed to a deal for the Portuguese international. Many Gunners expressed their disappointment at allowing a winger, deemed the perfect replacement for Bukayo Saka, to join another club when they had the opportunity to sign him. Arsenal was interested in the winger for a long time but did not make an official offer.
Anyway, much has been stated about why an effort was not made to get Neto to the Emirates Stadium, but in speaking on ESPN, James Olley disclosed the two reasons why the transaction did not go through. Neto’s injury and the possibility of pursuing other better choices convinced the Gunners that his swoop was not right, as they wanted someone who would be accessible at all times, according to the journalist.
“I think that’s one of the reasons Arsenal didn’t end up pursuing Pedro Neto basically. A top player, Chelsea could’ve stolen another one from under their noses there, but he’s missed a lot of games through injury and Arteta has this big thing in his head about reliability,” Olley said.
“Your biggest strength is your availability is how they phrase it internally, Neto is one of those players they were looking at for a long time, but they’ve decided to go elsewhere this summer.”
I believe we’ll find out in the next few months whether Arsenal made the right decision. However, the fact that Arsenal has decided to explore alternative options should be intriguing. Simon Adingra is one such winger who we may have overlooked in favour of Pedro Neto; the Brighton star may really light up the Emirates Stadium, and he may even persuade us that Neto was not the correct winger for us.
Darren N
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We have a few players with somewhat poor injury records now but this guy makes their unavailability look like nothing in comparison.
It all seems sensible, so I don’t regret Arsenal not going after him. We’ll see how he does (or lasts, more accurately) playing for Chelsea.
I just wish we could read a few more reports about players that Arsenal actually has bid for. Only one, Merino, currently falls into that category I think and, apparently, that was turned down flat requiring a trip to sunny Spain by Edu.
Always been a big fan of Neto, but if he’s likely to be that unreliable in terms of fitness to play, then it’s a good decision to pass on him.
Neto is quality – would start on Portuguese national team if fit enough. Problem is he is essential to Wolves who need his goal creation. As such he was probably rushed back to play before fully fit. With Saka we’d have that luxury. Neto would have been the perfect sub as well. Get Saka to go full bore for 65 mins and bring on the wizard Neto. He’d play almost every game and be invested in the team. He’d play less than at Wolves and hopefully be less injury prone. Added bonus is Star boy would not play so many minutes battered and fatigued. He’d be a better player. I think we just didn’t have the financial ability at the time Chelsea pulled the trigger. We needed to have made another big sale at the time. We may sell Rammers. Nketia and Nelson yet but that hadn’t yet happened.