A few years ago, then-Arsenal boss, Arsène Wenger, confirmed that he tried to sign a sprightly young winger named Kingsley Coman in 2014.

Kingsley Coman is now, of course, at Bayern Munich, scoring winning goals in the Champions League final, but when he was leaving Paris Saint-Germain on a free in 2014, he opted to join Italian champions Juventus.

Wenger, however, claims a transfer was almost complete to bring him to London.

“Yes, we really tried to sign Kingsley Coman in the summer of 2014. The transfer was almost completed, but he preferred Juventus,” said the Arsenal manager when on Bein Sports in 2015.

A year later, Coman signed for Bayern Munich on loan for two years before the Germans eventually made the move permanent for a fee just shy of £19m. But not without links to Arsenal persisting.

Despite arriving at a team that included Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben in their squad, Coman has found himself in the Bayern Munich team regularly from the beginning.

It’s sad to say, but the fact is by the age of 24 Coman has 160 appearances for Bayern Munich, along with 32 goals and 35 assists, at a time when the Germans were beating Arsenal 10-2 on aggregate. Even if Wenger had managed to sign Coman on a free in 2014 we would have had to sell him as Juventus did.

As for Wenger, Coman is just another name on a long list of greats who he tried to buy, wanted to buy or thought about buying during his two decades at Arsenal.

Other players Wenger wanted to sign include

N’Golo Kante, Vincent Kompany, Paul Pogba, Didier Drogba, Peter Cech (the first time), Gareth Bale, Yaya Toure and, of course, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.