What if we’d signed Cristiano Ronaldo?

One of the big questions, which will probably forever hang over Arsenal Football Club.

The forward was set to sign for Arsenal before he joined Manchester United and even went as far as speaking with Arsene Wenger.

However, it’s now emerged that one of the main reasons we didn’t sign him was because we couldn’t afford it. In fact, back in 2003, we were so broke that we almost couldn’t pay the Invincibles!

Moving to the Emirates was no small feat. No matter how easy fans like the think it was, being able to financially keep our heads above water, while still competing in the Premier League and Europe proved a lot harder than any of us previously realised.

The Emirates cost us £390m. This was money we had to come up with, not money we had gifted to us by the local council or money we had chucked at us by a rich investor. It’s precisely why we couldn’t afford to splash out on big name players for 10 years. So when one of the banks loaning us money pulled out of the deal, everything had to stop and I imagine there were some very squeaky bums up at head office.

Fortunately, we were able to sell some nearby land and secure funding in 2004.

The question of where we would be had we signed Ronaldo now isn’t worth thinking about. Mainly because it’s too painful but also because it’s a waste of time.

We are what we are now, and what we are is pretty great.