Tony Pulis has pointed the blame at Arsene Wenger for not recognising the incredible talent of Serge Gnabry while on loan at West Brom.
The German winger is arguably one of the Gunner’s biggest transfer mistakes in a very long time. Gnabry was part of Wenger’s side but although he showed promise, never really got close to the level of performances that he’s putting out now.
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In order to get him more game time, the French manager let him leave on loan to Pulis’ West Brom in 2015. The German still struggled to game time, making only three appearances.
As a result of this, he was recalled back to North London and sold to SV Werder Bremen before moving to Bayern and becoming the supreme talent that he currently is.
Pulis was ridiculed for this mistake for years but in a recent interview claimed that Wenger should house most of the blame.
‘I always get this thrown at me, but what people forget is that we had [Gnabry] on loan, Arsenal were his mother club, and Arsene Wenger was his manager and he sold him to Werder Bremen for £7million,’ he told Under The Cosh Podcast.
‘He had him right from 14 all the way through, I only had him for a couple of months.
‘He has done fantastically well now, you have to hold your hands up, but at the time he was nowhere near it. He was brought off in a reserve game.
‘I wasn’t there but they played Aston Villa on a Monday night and the reserve coach, who is at Sheffield Wednesday with Darren [Moore] now, brought him off.
‘He said he never tried a leg, he stood out wide, he flicked it up a few times and that was it. He has gone on to great things and done fantastically well.
‘I remember ringing [Dave Kemp, former West Brom assistant manager] and saying he has gone to Bayern Munich, and Kempy said it must be his twin brother, it can’t be the player we had.’
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