Reina reveals £20m move to Arsenal fell through
Pepe Reina has told that he nearly joined Arsenal in 2010, but the club owners at the time, Hicks and Gillet, pulled out of the £20m sale in order to help sell the club.
Reina, talking in his new autobiography, serialised in the Daily Mail, revealed:
"Arsenal had made their determination to sign me clear by offering £20m, a phenomenal amount for a goalkeeper. Part of me felt that I was well within my rights to consider my future even if I did so with a heavy heart.
"When Liverpool received the bid, they rejected it. This was not because I had been told that I was too good a keeper to leave. The reason I was given was quite different - and it left me feeling down. I was told that my continued presence was crucial to the sale of the club. I was simply a bargaining chip in the sales process."
He also stated his belief that Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard did not do enough to try and force out the Hicks and Gillet regime:
"The way I saw it, Stevie and Carra are the two principle members of our squad, the ones who the people love and if they had said something maybe it would have put Hicks and Gillett under real pressure. But in their view, it was more important to try to keep things as normal as possible."
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