Chelsea have made a habit of getting in Arsenal’s way in the transfer market.

Mikel Arteta really wanted to sign Morgan Rogers in the summer, but of course that came to nothing after the Gunners passed up on Aston Villa’s £117million price tag. He ended up at Stamford Bridge instead.

In January 2023, Arsenal had bids turned down for Mykhailo Mudryk before Chelsea swooped in and signed him from Shakhtar Donetsk. Unlike Rogers, though, that one was a huge bullet dodged in hindsight.

There’s one deal they couldn’t take from Arsenal, though, and a new revelation reveals how hard they tried. In extracts from Arsenal: The Inside Story of Arsenal’s Rebirth Under Mikel Arteta, Sam Dean of The Telegraph lifts the lid on Chelsea’s attempt to gatecrash one of Arsenal’s key signings from the summer of 2024.

Chelsea tried to hijack Riccardo Calafiori’s move to Arsenal

Arsenal had been tracking Riccardo Calafiori for months while he was at Bologna, and they planned to move for him whatever happened at Euro 2024. But his performances for Italy that summer meant other clubs suddenly wanted him too.

Arsenal couldn’t move before the Euros because of money. “It had to be one in, one out,” explained Jason Ayto, the club’s assistant sporting director at the time. “Emile Smith Rowe had to go [to Fulham], for Calafiori to come in. And then Eddie Nketiah [who joined Crystal Palace] connected with Mikel Merino. We had done loads of work on Calafiori before the Euros. It was just the timing. We couldn’t move earlier because of the financial restrictions.”

Arsenal got their man for £42million in the end, and they’ll be glad Chelsea’s call came to nothing. Calafiori has started all seven of their Premier League games this season and has two goals and two assists in all competitions, and he has made a strong case for being the best left-back in the Premier League.

It’s not the only revelation from Dean’s book, which also revealed that Mikel Arteta came close to joining Newcastle a few months before he became Arsenal manager.