Espanyol sporting director Fran Garagarza has conceded that the club just couldn’t lose Arsenal target Joan Garcia in the summer transfer window.
With Aaron Ramsdale leaving Arsenal in the summer, the Gunners were in the market for a number 2 goalkeeper and signed Neto towards the end of the window.
However, the Brazilian was not their top target and it was Espanyol’s Garcia that the club had identified as the goalkeeper they really wanted to sign in the summer.
Arsenal tried until the end to sign him but their €20m bid was rejected and Espanyol continued to maintain that they wanted Garcia’s €30m release clause to be paid.
Garagarza opened up on the reasons behind not wanting to sell the young goalkeeper in the summer transfer window despite strong interest from Arsenal.
We couldn’t lose the Arsenal target, insists the Espanyol deal-maker
The Espanyol sporting director admitted that a decision was made that Garcia still had room for growth and his value is only going to go up in the coming years.
He also stressed that the club were not in a position to weaken their goalkeeping options by selling the player in the last transfer window.
Garagarza is certain that the roving eyes of clubs will continue to keep tabs on Garcia moving forward and Espanyol will get more opportunities to cash in on the young goalkeeper in the coming years.
“If you sense that there will be growth and performance, perhaps the current one could be a sale of a player without reaching completion”, the Espanyol sporting director told AS.
“For this exercise, we have understood that Joan is an asset and that he is necessary to achieve the objective because he acts in a very specific position.
“We could not weaken there, we couldn’t.
“The interest in him is not going to stop. The time to sell Joan may be at another time.”
