David Orstein says Arsenal did not see Lisandro Martinez as value for money
According to David Ornstein, Arsenal made the decision to back out of a deal for Lisandro Martinez due to the transfer’s prospective financial burden. There has been a lot of conversations regarding why Lisandro Martinez chose Manchester over Arsenal now that a contract with Manchester United has been finalized.
According to one story, Martinez had rejected Arsenal, but it appeared that the Gunners had dropped out of the running. Martinez never really had the option to join Arsenal because they had never agreed on a price for the player, which backed that opinion.
Arsenal were interested in Martinez, but not at the sum United paid, according to David Ornstein of The Athletic, who has clarified the issue.
“Arsenal decided to focus their attention on Lisandro Martinez of Ajax this summer,” Ornstein explained.
“But also there was interest in him from Arsenal previously, it wasn’t completely fresh, but this is when they really stepped it up.
“But as soon as Manchester United were in the equation and wanted to provide Erik ten Hag with a player that he was very determined to recruit, they went up to a level of finance that Arsenal just weren’t prepared to meet.
“They didn’t think that was the sort of value for money they were looking for…”
Contrary to most moves in today’s market, the final Martinez deal’s financial details have been officially confirmed. Martinez was departing for Ajax for €57.37 million (£48.94 million), with potential bonuses pushing the total cost to €67.37 million (£57.47 million).
