Arsenal-oriented journalist James McNicholas has revealed that Arsenal were interested in signing Jonny Evans back in 2018.
McNicholas was a guest on the latest episode of the ‘Handbrake Off’ podcast recently. The main topic of discussion was defender David Luiz, but McNicholas revealed some details about the Gunners’ pursuit of Evans back in 2018.
The journalist revealed that while Luiz was offered to Arsenal back in January 2018, the London club was also ‘considering’ a move to sign Evans at that point itself.
McNicholas said (16:56): “When Arsenal were first linked with David Luiz, it was around January 2018. And from what we understand, they were actually offered the chance to sign him from Chelsea at that point, and the other centre-half name they were considering at that stage was Jonny Evans, who was at West Brom at the time.
“And I remember a lot of Arsenal fans slightly turning up their nose at the idea of Jonny Evans because he was playing at West Brom, they were towards the bottom of the table, he was not a fashionable player.”
Would you like Arsenal to sign Evans this summer?
That will be brilliant
He's too old
McNicholas claimed that Evans would have been a very good signing for the Gunners and that they got it wrong when passing up the chance to sign him.
He continued: “But I do think that if you look at the fact that he then moved on for £3m that summer, if you look at the way that he’s played since, the consistency that he has shown and the way that he’s emerged as a real leader in a resurgent Leicester team, I think Arsenal basically got that wrong.
“I think they should have signed Jonny Evans, and I think he would have been a much, much better defender for them than many of the guys that ended up playing.”
Clearly, McNicholas holds a very high opinion of Evans and his potential suitability to Arsenal and has regrets that the club couldn’t sign the former Manchester United man.
TIF Thoughts…
While Arsenal signed Luiz in the summer of 2019 for a fee of £8m, Leicester had signed Evans from West Brom for just £3.5m a year earlier.
The 2019/20 season has seen Luiz pick up a WhoScored match rating of only 6.57/10 over 26 Premier League appearances. 32-year-old Evans’ rating stands at a much more impressive 6.95 in 29 top-flight games.
That is a fair reflection of who’s had a better season. And it also shows that in hindsight, Evans may have been a good signing for Arsenal and may not have cost too much, either.