Current Birmingham City striker Troy Deeney has opened up about possibly signing for Arsenal but rejecting a move as he wouldn’t apologise for a past comment made about Arsene Wenger and the club.
What happened between Troy Deeney and Arsenal?
Back in 2017, the Englishman annoyed many in North London following a 2-1 Watford win against the Gunners. Speaking to BT Sport after the game, he claimed that Wenger’s men didn’t have the “cojones” to deal with his physicality.
Deeney said (via Evening Standard): “I’ve heard Wenger’s already blaming (the penalty decision) as the reason why they lost. I’m not going to be the one to tell Mr Wenger about himself, but there’s a reason why they lost and it wasn’t because of one penalty.
“I’ll have to watch what I say. It’s (having) a bit of cojones, a bit of nuts.”
All these years on, in a new interview when speaking on Filthy Fellas podcast (via Watford Observer), he has claimed that Arsenal wanted to then sign him back in 2020.
However, a move could only happen if he apologised for his past comments, which he supposedly refused to do.
Deeney explained: “Then, back in training now, and I’m on the bike because my knee’s not right, and someone from Arsenal asks if I’d go to Arsenal. But what you have to do is apologise for that [cojones] comment.
“I said I’m not apologising for that.”
What did Deeney say about joining Leicester?
Deeney is known for being a bit of a combustible character and this is further exemplified in the rest of the podcast. For instance, at one point he also spoke about the dramatic steps he would take to try and force a move to a move to Leicester City.
He said: “I was like ‘I want to go to Leicester’. They’d just won the league, they were in the Champions League. If I play three games I’ll probably get an England call-up.
“So we go back into Watford and they’re like ‘give us one last chance to convince you to stay’.
“So I’m at £30m. I ain’t running. I’m a big boy anyway. I’ll come back fat as f**k and I will injure every player until you sell me. I promise you, I’ll injure every player.“
What’s more, he also then called out the journalist Andrew French on Twitter for sharing all the quotes from the recent podcast, saying: “Slow news week I see Andrew if you need context watch the full @Filthy_Fellas don’t take lines out because you have nothing to talk about.”
All in all, he doesn’t seem like the easier character to be around and it’s probably fair to suggest most Arsenal fans won’t be too sad to learn a transfer never came to pass.
