Why did Arsenal turn down the chance to sign Icardi in January?

Stefan Bienkowski

15 Feb 2022 17:53 GMT
5 min read

The January transfer window has come and gone but one of the most bizarre stories to come out of it continues to haunt Arsenal.

Fans of the club were already disappointed enough to see the London side go an entire month without signing another striker whilst allowing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to leave for free, but new reports suggest that Mikel Arteta and his backroom staff turned down the chance to bring in a competent goal scorer when offered the chance.

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According to the Athletic, Arsenal had the chance to send Aubameyang to PSG and sign Argentina forward Mauro Icardi in return. However, the Premier League giants reportedly rejected such an offer.

So why did Arsenal decide against signing Icardi despite being so desperate for another striker?

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A post shared by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (@auba)

He’s not good enough

The main obstacle to Icardi joining Arsenal in January was probably the fact that he isn’t exactly the best striker available on the market right now.

Although the towering No.9 had a fantastic record in Italy, Icardi’s move to PSG has seen him play a bit-part role off the bench and that has had a huge impact on his goalscoring.

So far this season the 28-year-old striker has only managed four goals in 19 league games and over the course of his entire career at PSG he’s only bagged 38 goals in 87 games. Which isn’t great when you consider how many league goals in-form forwards tend to rack up at PSG.

𝗠𝗔𝗨𝗥𝗢 𝙄𝘾𝘼𝙍𝘿𝙄 🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/dvjabFCYhn
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_inside) September 5, 2019

He’s far too expensive

Although Arsenal were technically offered the opportunity to sign Icardi for free in January, it would have still meant the club would have paid out a sign-on fee for the striker as well as huge wages.

According to reports in France, Icardi currently has an annual salary of £8.1 million, which is not only a huge amount for a player of his diminishing talent but a total that would have made him Arsenal’s third highest paid player at the club, behind Alexandre Lacazette and Thomas Partey.

Considering the efforts Arsenal have gone to just to offload overpaid, senior players over the past two or three years, it’s easy to see why bringing in Icardi would have made very little sense.