Hamburger SV sporting director Claus Costa has denied ripping Arsenal off for Fabio Vieira, but he conceded that HSV are very happy with the deal they agreed.
Hamburger SV spent the whole summer negotiating with Arsenal for Fabio Vieira, talking the Gunners down from their initial €22m purchase clause to a deal for less than half that amount. The eventual deal was reportedly around €10m, albeit with a sell-on clause.
Speaking to the media this week, HSV sporting director Claus Costa asked whether they’d “pulled Arsenal over the table”, a German expression meaning to trick, cheat, or rip someone off.
“Certainly not,” Costa insisted. “We can’t get into the bidding and get into the ring with other financially stronger clubs. Accordingly, we had to wait for our chance and in the end, we are very happy that this deal was successful for us.”
It’s definitely hard to argue that HSV used any particularly untoward tactics in their pursuit of Vieira. Perhaps they leant on the media a bit, pushing the idea that the player really wanted to return to Germany. But by all accounts, that was true.
Other than that, HSV simply waited and maintained their position on how much they were willing to pay.
The problem for Arsenal was that there weren’t any rival bidders putting up a more attractive offer. The Gunners ultimately didn’t have a better option than selling to HSV in a cut-price deal.
For what it’s worth at such an early stage, Vieira has made a slow start to his second spell with HSV. At the time of writing, he’s made three appearances for the club with no goals or assists, and two of those three games were 5-0 defeats.
The third game was a 2-1 win over FC Koln, which was a big result. It took HSV off the bottom of the Bundesliga and out of the relegation zone by earning them their first points of the season.
Vieira had four shots in the victory, all on target, but all from distance and relatively easily stopped. Still, it’s a sign that things could slowly be improving for him and his new team.
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