Mathieu Debuchy locked in gilded cage at Arsenal as Arsene Wenger loses patience with wantaway defender

Sidelined: Debuchy has made just one appearance for Arsenal this season
Arsenal FC via Getty Images
James Benge30 December 2016

It takes quite something for Arsene Wenger to so publicly place a player up for sale as he did Mathieu Debuchy on Friday.

It says even more about the gilded cage Debuchy finds himself in that his manager would claim that no-one is particularly interested in taking him off Arsenal’s hands.

Not for the first time in recent months Debuchy laid out his concerns to the French press as he bemoaned the fact he was neither in the Arsenal side nor out of the club.

That prompted Wenger to suggest Debuchy’s interview with L’Equipe contained several erroneous claims, not least that Fiorentina, Espanyol and Manchester United all wanted to sign him.

It is an unfortunate fall from grace for Debuchy who, were it not for circumstance and one of the great young players of the Wenger era, might still be a key cog in the Arsenal side.

Make no mistake, when Debuchy arrived he was the ideal replacement for Bacary Sagna – who had just become the final key player to abandon the Emirates for the Etihad – and then some: France’s number one right-back; a Ligue 1 title winner with Lille, and one of Newcastle’s best players.

Arsenal in training 28 December 2016

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In summer 2014 Arsenal truly flexed their financial muscles in signing Alexis Sanchez and acquiring Debuchy a week later. The defender’s arrival felt like a major statement of intent; now it seems like £12million wasted.

Not that that seemed the case in those early summer months as Debuchy swiftly slotted into Wenger’s side without any need for the adaptation period Arsenal signings must so often go through. The right-back was an ever-present in the Gunners’ first seven games, particularly impressing in Istanbul as Besiktas’ visitors claimed a creditable 0-0 draw.

"We say hello, nothing more."

&#13; <p>Debuchy on his relationship with Wenger</p>&#13;

But as would so often be the case with Debuchy since his arrival at Arsenal, debilitating injury struck at the most inopportune of moments. Nine minutes from the end of a fine rearguard display at home to Manchester City, the stretcher was summoned and oxygen was required as the Frenchman lay prone on the Emirates turf.

Luck has not been on Debuchy’s side since. How was he to imagine that Hector Bellerin would go from disastrous debutant in Dortmund to the finest right-back in England? The Spaniard’s emergence seems still to puzzle his rival, who seemed to reluctantly concede in January that his replacement in Wenger’s starting XI had “had some good games.”

Bellerin would go on to be named in the PFA Team of the Year that season.

Yet with a chance to represent his country at a home tournament on the line it is utterly understandable that Debuchy should have chosen to force his way out in January, though a change of scenery was not to bring any more luck as he suffered a muscle injury that ended his hopes of making Euro 2016.

It also may well have killed his chances of securing a move away from Arsenal, as Wenger made clear on Friday. It would have been a transfer that suited both parties. “Of course” they would consider offers for him, the Arsenal manager said.

But those offers just weren’t coming in, as Wenger laid out in some depth: not from Fiorentina; not from Espanyol, and certainly not from Manchester United.

“They had no interest in him at all because we checked that,” Wenger said.

It leaves Arsenal and Debuchy, whose return to the Arsenal side this season lasted just 16 minutes before he picked up a hamstring injury, in a loveless union neither seem likely to escape from. With sizeable wages, a lengthy contract and a chequered fitness record, it is perhaps no surprise that few are rushing to take the defender off Wenger’s hands.

And with Carl Jenkinson much in demand Arsenal may feel they cannot do without some backup for Bellerin. Debuchy’s purgatory may be far from over.

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