Arsenal Transfer: Juan Mata Deal Collapses as Arsenal Fail to Pay Release Fee

I have always been a supporter of Arsene Wenger, but if what Guillem Balague, the La Liga expert, has said is true, I will seriously seriously reconsider my stance on Arsene, although it's probably Gazidis who would let a thing like this happen.

Apparently, yesterday was the last day the release clause of €20 million to €23 million was available for, and Arsenal and Valencia both agreed the fee, Mata was happy to join Arsenal.

However, Arsenal failed to pay the money into Valencia's bank account in time because Arsene wanted to wait until the Cesc to Barca deal was completed. Now Mata's release clause has gone up to €60 million, and only a bid of over €30 million would be enough for Valencia to allow Mata to leave.

And we all know that Arsene is probably never in a million years going to spend that much on one player, so therefore, it looks like we've missed out on the one signing I was genuinely excited about since Andrei Arshavin.

Arsene's a clever man, he's no idiot and he obviously knew that he only had yesterday to pay the money. He clearly knew that the Cesc deal isn't going to be completed for at least a few more days, maybe weeks.

So why the hell could he not just pay the money? What happened to these "funds" that Wenger and Ivan Gazidis said we have, why did the Cesc money need to be used.

Juan Mata was the one player who I personally felt could really help soften the blow of losing maybe both Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, and now it looks like we're not going to get him, and Guillem Balague says the most likely thing that will happen is Juan Mata will sign a new contract with Valencia.

I hope for once that this man is wrong, though usually he's spot on. Just this once, I hope he is wrong.

And a thing a couple of people have pointed out to me is that it's a bit odd that Arsenal were meant to pay the money before Juan Mata had even completed a medical, so let's hope this report is false.

But if not, we've lost out on a big player who would really help Arsenal.

Nice one Arsene, nice one...