Arsenal once faced instant regrets when signing Kim Kallstrom, as they discovered in his medical he had a broken back. Thankfully for the Gunners, incoming Eberechi Eze is believed to have passed his medical this week with flying colours ahead of his £67.5million move from Crystal Palace.
Medicals haven’t always gone smoothly for Arsenal, who ultimately opted to plough ahead with the signing of Kim Kallstrom, even though the Swede had a fractured vertebrae. It was early 2014, and Arsene Wenger’s title-challenging side had already suffered a spate of injuries within their camp.
Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey were sidelined, while Mathieu Flamini was suspended. That prompted Arsenal to enter the transfer market just ahead of the January deadline.
Boasting vast experience, 31-year-old Kallstrom of Spartak Moscow seemed like a sensible option at the time for Wenger to bring in. After a loan deal until the end of the season was agreed, he underwent a medical, which he technically passed.
However, it subsequently emerged that Kallstrom’s fitness check should not have received the green light due to the back injury he suffered playing beach football during a warm-weather training trip with Spartak in Abu Dhabi. That meant he was sidelined for the first six weeks of his Gunners career, by which time Flamini was available again.
It meant the late deal that January which Arsenal chose to go through with proved to be regretful, as he failed to be a short-term solution.
Kallstrom went on to make just three Premier League appearances for Arsenal, as the signing ended up being a major embarrassment for the club. Wenger said he considered pulling the plug on the transfer when hearing of his back issue, but insisted it was a case of needs must.
Wenger said: “I’m sure that, if you’ve played football, you might have played with a micro fracture of a vertebra without knowing you had it. You don’t even notice it.
“It crossed my mind [not to complete the deal], but I would not have signed him if we’d had two or three more days to do something. It was 5pm on Friday night, so it was sign him or nobody. Spartak are paying his wages for the first six weeks. We thought it would be four to six weeks.
“There is a possibility for every single player that they will not play but there’s also the chance he scores a winning goal that’s vitally important. We will only know if we’re wrong or right at the end of the season.”
There are no such issues surrounding England star Eze – a statement signing for the Gunners, who gazumped north London rivals Tottenham to land the Eagles attacking midfielder. His arrival will take Arsenal’s summer spending to £260m.
Fabrizio Romano has reported on Saturday morning, following Eze’s medical on Friday, that all documents have been signed for the player to become an Arsenal man, meaning he will have passed his tests. Former Arsenal youth Eze will be delighted to have learned he is set for the next chapter of his career, back at his boyhood club.
When asked if he is now armed with the most complete squad of his near seven-year tenure, head coach Mikel Arteta said: “In terms of numbers and quality, yes for sure. When you shake the tree and bring in more players, there are always things that can happen.
“The spirit of that is to be more competitive, to be better and learn from the past, and with the squad we had last year we made life very, very difficult for ourselves if you look at the size and depth of other squads and the resources they had.
“So, we all have big smiles on our faces with the understanding that we have done really well, but the market is not closed and we have to stay very alert because there are a lot of things that can happen still. But so far, so good.”
