On Tuesday night Barcelona defeated Bayern Munich in the Champion’s League and progressed to the final for the first time since 2011.

While this news may seem irrelevant – and mildly annoying – to most Arsenal fans, there is a silver lining, and you know we love silver linings.

According to Sporting Studio, in a tweet posted yesterday (not the original source which has been hard to track), if Barcelona win the Champions League, Arsenal get around €3.8m – roughly £2.7m – because we sold them Thomas Vermaelen last summer.

The defender has barely featured for the La Liga team, only getting named on the bench for the first time on May 6th in the first leg against Bayern Munich. Therefore, the fact we not only sold him for a reported £15m and now get almost another £3m on top of that for a player they’ve not used, seems like a stroke of genius.

Did Arsene Wenger see this coming? I’ve no doubt about it.

It just goes to show that selling to Barcelona isn’t necessarily a bad thing.