A former Arsenal scout claims the Premier League rejected the chance to sign Paris Saint-Germain star Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for only £10m in 2022.
Kvaratskhelia is one of the best wingers in the world. He’s sparkled for PSG since joining the Ligue Un giants from Napoli for around £59m as part of January’s most expensive deals.
The 24-year-old has ten goal involvements in 23 outings for PSG and he impressed against Arsenal in the Champions League semi-finals.
The Georgia international has been heavily linked with a potential move to the Premier League in recent years, with Liverpool known to be admirers of the PSG star.
Now, Arsenal’s former scout for Eastern Europe, Tomasz Pasieczny, has revealed that he made checks on Kvaratskhelia during his spell at Rubin Kazan.
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The Gunners eventually opted to turn down the chance to sign Kvaratskhelia, who eventually joined Napoli in 2022 for a deal worth around £10m. Shortly after, the Premier League side snapped up Marquinhos as an alternative for around £3.5m, who has proved a major flop and has only made six appearances.
Pasieczny has revealed when he first encountered Kvaratskhelia, who was compared to one of his teammates during a youth tournament.
“Georgia’s youth team visited Poland, there was a qualifying tournament. My job was to pay attention to other teams, but when you saw them – Khvicha and Zuriko Davitashvili – we had long discussions with other scouts about who was better,” Pasieczny told weszlo.com.
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“Then I watched both of them in Russia, so I followed their development for a long time.”
Pasieczny also recalled that the PSG winger struggled off the bench during a match between Kazan and Dynamo Moscow, as he was impacted by negative fan reactions after a couple of poor contributions.
It is also noted that staff at Arsenal had “doubts” regarding the winger’s ceiling.
He added: “He couldn’t cope with it. Every next move was bad, from start to finish. He got lost, the ball bounced off him, you could see that he had lost his confidence.
“He overcame it, but if it had continued, it would have been a problem. Being affected by a few thousand people in Kazan doesn’t lead to a good rating…
“Everyone knew he would be mega good, but they wondered how good. Whether he would be the absolute top or a bit lower.
“Few had any doubts that he wouldn’t be anything at all. However, at that stage I had to write how it is, draw conclusions, write where the problems are.”
