Despite a summer of anticipation, Arsenal’s transfer window quickly became a list of departures rather than arrivals, but there was one man who failed to secure an exit.
Mathieu Debuchy has seen his Gunners career go from bad to worse after losing his place to the young legs of Hector Bellerin, which was followed up by a horror injury.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he managed just 16 minutes on his return to the first team last season before suffering another long-term spell on the bench, thus ending his chances of salvaging his career.
And in an interview with L’Equipe which has been transcribed by GFFN, the 32-year-old has opened up on what exactly happened over the summer and why he’s still recognised as an Arsenal player.
These are not easy times. I wanted to find an exit door, but sadly, it was not possible. There was a possibility with Nice, they came to me but it didn’t happen.
The manager would have let me leave this summer for free. Brighton enquired in the final days of the window, but a deal did not come about.
I train with the pros in the week and I play with the kids on the weekend. I am not the future of the club. I have proved my worth.
Debuchy’s days in the first team could somehow be saved by Arsenal entering the Europa League, but it’s more than likely Wenger will prefer to use the youth.
There’s been a few falling out’s with these two over time and the relationship is now dead and buried after Wenger refused the chance for Debuchy to join Man United two years ago.
His £70,000-per-week wages are a huge stumbling block for any interested team and his reluctance to reduce his demands is probably the main reason for the Brighton move falling through.
He seems to me to be a player who’s happy to play mediocre football every week in exchange for a healthy pay packet, but I really do hope we can ship him out in January.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Hector Bellerin, Calum Chambers and Shkodran Mustafi are all above Debuchy in the pecking order at right-back so his days could be over.
The only way I see him returning to the squad would be in a Cup competition, and we’ll get a good insight to how Wenger wants to play the Europa League on Thursday night’s opener against Cologne.
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