Jose Rodriguez has claimed that, once upon a time, he almost signed for Arsenal.

The Galatasaray midfielder, who used to play for Real Madrid, apparently almost joined us back in 2011, during the dark days.

The 20-year-old, who obviously would have been joining our youth squad back then, told Goal, “I was in London, just about to sign with Arsenal. But then, Real Madrid put faith in me, and I think things haven’t gone bad for me since then.”

The youngster went on to only feature four times for the Real Madrid first team. However, he featured 61 times for their B team and he seems confidence of his future at the Turkish giants.

Stories like these leave me convinced that the footballing world is littered with footballers that we almost signed. Every week someone’s turning up claiming we called them, or they were going to join us. The sound of Cristiano Ronaldo, a.k.a. the one that got away, winning Ballon D’or after Ballon D’or probably echoed around the inside of Wenger’s head every time he watched Gervinho somehow sky a chance about a metre out.

Hopefully this isn’t one of the players who comes back to haunt us.