Arsenal are like any other football club in the world in having their fair share of mistakes when it comes to transfers. The ones that got away for example.
Yunus Musah may well be one of those stories for the Gunners. The attacking midfielder has recently starred on the world stage for the USA at the World Cup in Qatar and it would have left many Arsenal supporters wondering 'what if'.
Musah spent seven years in the Arsenal academy, but left in 2019 at the age of 16, deciding instead to move to Valencia in Spain. He spoke about his exit ahead of the USA's clash with England in the group stages of the World Cup explaining why he left the Emirates Stadium.
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He said then: "I felt at the time maybe, we’ll never know, that I wasn’t able to be in the Arsenal first-team so early. Their team was really good and I felt at my age I could play first-team football and there was the chance to move to Valencia. Things turned out great. I’m very grateful for that."
Musah has been linked with a return to north London, however. There were links in the January transfer window, and Musah is expected to garner interest in the summer once more too.
Speaking to CBS Sports during the January transfer window, transfer guru Fabrizio Romano said: "Yunus Musah is in the list of Premier League clubs. Arsenal recently sent their scouts to monitor him, but there are also other Premier League giants well informed, Inter Milan are interested too. He could leave Valencia between January and June."
So, Arsenal have been scouting their former star, now 20 years old and he is known to be one of the rising stars in his position in world football. In fact, he has more experience of first team football than almost any other player in his position.
According to data experts CIES Football Observatory, only three other attacking midfielders under the age of 21 have more top level experience based on playing time, the competitive level of matches played and results. And those three would all cost Arsenal a hell of a lot more to sign this summer.
Jude Bellingham, highly sought-after, tops the list, followed by Barcelona's Gavi and Bayern Munich's Jamal Musiala. All of those would command transfer fees higher than £100million.
Musah however, is valued at around £30million by CIES and would prove to be a shrewd re-signing for the Gunners. Particularly as he has already amassed more experience than the likes of Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho - lower down the list who are highly regarded by Liverpool.
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