French football expert, Julien Laurens, has revealed why Arsenal didn’t sign N’Golo Kante.

• Kante cost Leicester £5.6m in 2015
• Kante signed for Chelsea for a reported £32m in 2016
  
• The midfielder has been one of Chelsea’s most important players this season

Speaking to BBC 5Live, Laurens, who’s written for the Guardian and worked with BT Sport in the past, revealed that Arsene Wenger was keeping an eye on Kante while he was at Caen. However, the boss apparently didn’t think he was good enough and passed up the opportunity to bring him to the Premier League before Leicester snapped him up in 2015.

“They looked closely, they went to see him at the French camp – Arsene went to see him a lot,” Laurens revealed.

“They just didn’t think he had enough to make it into their team and then it was too late.

“Then they tried to sign him last summer and he decided to go to Chelsea.

“It’s a weird one, but again I don’t know why bigger clubs weren’t there when he was at Caen because it was so obvious [signing Kante].”

This isn’t a huge surprise as Wenger confirmed in February that he was looking to sign Kante back when he was in France and then later, after his spectacular season at Leicester, in which the midfielder helped the Foxes beat all the odds and win the title.

“Have I looked to sign Kanté? Yes,” Wenger said.

“When he was in France and when he was at Leicester,” Wenger said. “I cannot explain everything [about why he preferred Chelsea] but it is quite obvious when you look at where he has gone. Was it the money? I do not want to talk about that. Transfers are transfers – you cannot explain absolutely everything.”

It’s now looking as if Wenger made a huge mistake by not moving for him while he was at Caen but it’s hard to predict how a player will develop. The club probably watch dozens of promising youngsters. Some may turn into superstars but many won’t. Part of being a manager is about weighing up whether that gamble is worth it or not.

Wenger obviously decided that, at the time, there wasn’t enough there to make the gamble worth while if it didn’t pay off.