The Gunners were too eager to sell this star.
Arsenal are a team that, not too long ago, was seemingly stuck somewhere between eighth and fifth place in the Premier League, unable to drag themselves back to the glory of the early Arsène Wenger years and unlikely to fall all the way down to the bottom of the table.
However, the arrival of Mikel Arteta and Edu, combined with a renewed willingness to spend from Stan Kroenke, has seen the Gunners get back to a place in which they can genuinely compete for the top honours again.
This revival has been built off of several years of intelligent transfer business, and while incomings have generally been brilliant, there have been a few sales which, in retrospect, look ill-thought-out.
One in particular might’ve cost the club a pretty penny over the last year and a half.
Bernd Leno’s time at Arsenal
The player in question is German shot-stopper and former Gunner, Bernd Leno.
Arsenal paid Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen £19m for the then-26-year-old’s signature in June 2018 – during Unai Emery’s first summer at the club – after he had made 304 appearances for Die Werkself, in which he kept 100 clean sheets.
While the 6 foot 2 keeper failed to make it into the Germany squad for the 2018 World Cup, he had already made six national team appearances before arriving in London and would go on to make three more in the following years.
The “extraordinary” number one, as Fulham boss Marco Silva described him, settled into life quickly in N5 and, after spending the first six games of the Premier League season on the bench, quickly established himself as the team’s undisputed number one and made 36 appearances in that first season.
In his second season, the Bietigheim-Bissingen-born star would play just 32 games for the club after suffering that infamous injury at the hands of Neal Maupay in June, which left a space for Emiliano Martínez to come in and help the side lift the FA Cup a month later.
2020/21 would be Leno’s final year as a regular starter for the club, as in the summer of 2021, Arteta sanctioned the £30m signing of Aaron Ramsdale from Sheffield United, who became the new number one and saw the German reduced to just eight appearances in 2021/22.
With his position within the team now clear, the former Bayer Leverkusen man pushed for a move in the summer and, with his desire to remain in London, was sold to Fulham for just £3m.
Bernd Leno’s valuation at Fulham
Leno started life in west London much the same way he did in north London, confidently.
The former Arsenal ace made 37 appearances in his first season at Craven Cottage, kept eight clean sheets and had the second-best save percentage – 77.1% – in the league, behind only David Raya at Brentford.
It has been another barnstorming campaign for the experienced professional this year, with 29 appearances and six clean sheets to his name, and he currently has the sixth-best save percentage in the league at72.7%.
His impressive season and a half with the Cottagers has seen his value soar past his initial transfer fee, with Football Transfers Expected Transfer Model valuing the 31-year-old at around €15.5m, which is about £13m, or a 333% increase on what Arsenal initially sold him for in 2022.
Now, the Gunners did make an additional £2m from the deal following Fulham’s survival last season and look set to make another £2m for the same reason this year, plus £1m for reaching a certain number of appearances. Still, even then, they could have made another £5m at least, had they sold him closer to his true value instead of letting him leave on the cheap.
Ultimately, the Gunners made their choice when they allowed the German to join Fulham in 2022, and while it won’t go down as a cataclysmic failure, it is an example of the club failing to sell their unwanted stars efficiently.
