That would be a pretty bad reason for missing out on a player of his calibre

I think it was more to do with Wengers belief that Cesc and Samir (or at least one) would stay, right up til the bitter end.

If Cesc or Samir had stayed, Mata (in Wengers opinion) wasn't needed.

He's the most delusional manager in the world.

Maybe he wanted to join the team which was keeping its best players and challenging for the title regularly, and the team which would pay him more? Just saying. Not that I think the ch avs are a bigger club.

Am i the only one who thinks that Mata hasn't been that good? He's no better than Arteta imo

I don't really see how you can compare the two they are totally different players.

Don't get me wrong, i like Arteta, he can shoot from outside the box, his passing is good, he's good defensively, set pieces are good but had Mata joined Arsenal I suspect we would hold him in higher regard actually.

Mata is class! He would made such a huge difference to our season but what can we do now.

mata and arteta combined would have been a mouthwatering prospect.

anyway, i think mack is right on this one: the story i keep hearing is that the mata deal was virtually a done thing, and both parties were just waiting for the go-ahead from wenger. but he ummed and erred until valencia took their business elsewhere.

i suppose it could have been borne out of his belief that he would only lose one (or neither) of cesc or nasri.

Yes but except for Wenger the whole world knew that both of them were off this summer, there was no way Cesc was going to stay and Nasri had made it very clear that he wasn't going to sign a contract extension with us so it made all the sense in the world to sign Mata. Only Arsene Wenger could mess up such a move.

Even if we had kept them we should have still be signing Mata! No excuses!

*been

i think the way Wenger conducted himself with respect to both Fabregas and Nasri, was that he really thought he stood a chance of retaining them, I think he sees himself as a father figure with that much influence.

Chelsea are only paying him 65k/week so I doubt he joined for money

Considering how he's our best player, he probably could have easily got 100k+

i think the way Wenger conducted himself with respect to both Fabregas and Nasri, was that he really thought he stood a chance of retaining them, I think he sees himself as a father figure with that much influence.
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i think that's why we took so long to sell nasri, to be honest.

a lot is said of wenger's powers of persuasion, and i think he himself sets a lot of store by those powers as well. the view from the outside was that the board had interfered and sold a player against his wishes; but i think it's more likely that wenger had assured them that he could talk nasri round. he might have said. 'look, give me some time to talk to him and i'll persuade him to stay. if i haven't talked him into re-signing by the last week of august, you can sell him.'

Apparently Wenger was willing to keep Nasri and let him leave on a free, the decision to sell him came from the board. And Barca got Cesc for peanuts anyway, before that they were offering even less. Nobody knows 100% what happened anyway, but anti Wenger brigade will obviously find a way to blame it all on him.

And the pro Wenger brigade will always find a way to defend even his most idiotic moves.

"Nobody knows 100% what happened anyway"