Stinginess not to blame this time as Arsenal miss out on Gustavo

The short arms and deep pockets argument has typically been blamed in the past for Arsenal failing to sign any of their leading transfer targets, including Juan Mata two summers ago and Gonzalo Higuain in recent months since the end of the last campaign.

Many are likely to roll out this reason again as the Gunners seem to have been beaten by Wolfsburg to the capture of Luis Gustavo and there has been some speculation that Wenger was unprepared to meet the £20m demands of Bayern Munich.

However, Gustavo’s desperation to make Brazil’s World Cup squad for next year could be the ultimate reason and to give himself the best possible chance of being selected, he needs to be a first-team regular.

Although he would have been an important first-team player at Arsenal, he will be almost indispensable to Wolfsburg and can expect to play every game when fit. At Arsenal, rotation would have been more common and there would be a reduced chance of standing out.

As the chance to represent your country at a home World Cup is so rare, many Brazilians may tip the balance against the norm in terms of prioritising first-team football over salary and a crack at the Champions League for this one season.

This argument could be applied to Paulinho picking Tottenham over Juventus and why Bernard has also turned down a move to the Emirates to go to Shakhtar.

With Tottenham getting busy in the transfer market, Arsenal are in slight danger of slipping behind and supporters will not ideally want a repeat of the 2011/12 season, when there was a semi mad dash to add squad depth on deadline day.

Luis Suarez and Marouane Fellaini are two names that have been linked with Arsenal at various points in pre-season, but it is now 7/2 and 11/2 respectively that this pair are signed before the closing of the transfer window.

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