Greek Agent Reveals Arsenal Beat Five Other Clubs To Sign Konstantinos Mavropanos

Greek scout and agent Vasilis Stachtiaris has revealed that Arsenal had beaten off interest from five other European clubs in order to pursue Konstantinos Mavropanos’ signature. The young centre-back joined the Gunners in a £2.2m deal during the winter transfer window, and he has since been plying his trade with the Under-23 side.

Speaking in an interview with Goal.com, Stachtiaris revealed the Olmpiakos had an agreement with the highly-rated defender, but the player’s urge to move abroad helped the Gunners acquire his services, he said: “Mavropanos had an agreement with Olympiakos before the Arsenal offer came in. But there were also advanced talks with Udinese. Two other teams from Spain, Eibar and Rayo Vallecano, were interested as well.We had talks with AEK Athens but the offer was low. So, Olympiakos were in pole position but he wanted mainly to play in a league abroad.”

Mavropanos had only managed seven senior appearances for PAS Giannina prior to his Premier League move, and Stachtiaris says the north London side need to manage the defender well, if they are to get the best out of him, he added: “He is an asset for Arsenal and the club must protect him and invest in his talent.”

Mavropanos was initially being tipped to join Werder Bremen on loan during the second half of the season, but the Greek youth international did enough in training to convince Arsene Wenger into keeping hold of his services. Mavropanos has since kept a couple of clean sheets in four starts for the reserve team, and only time will tell whether the defender has the credentials to step forward into the senior squad. Aside from inexperienced Mavropanos, Arsenal landed the signature of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the winter period whilst parting ways with the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott, Francis Coquelin, Mathieu Debuchy, and Olivier Giroud.