Eze had a deal with the spuds basically sitting in front of him, but he always wanted to come home to the Arsenal, with his long-standing love for his boyhood club known to basically everyone.
He called Arteta personally before signing the spuds' deal to see if there was a chance of us to come in at the 11th hour.
Arteta told him that after Havertz's recent injury action to strengthen the squad further would be taken, that Ebs was a serious candidate, and to hang tight for that afternoon until the board had met.
An ecstatic Eze later received a call that not only had the board agreed that Eze should be pursued, but that they had got right on the phone with Palace, and the deal had been finalized.
Palace were happier selling Eze to us than to the spuds. Parish (their Chairman) has a good relationship with us. And despite eventually agreeing completely to Palace's demands, the negotiations between Parish and Levy over the Eze deal had left a bad taste in the Palace chairman's mouth due to the fractious nature of the early discussions.
Our board's concerns over financial repercussions of us spending too much we put to the side for Eze, with the feeling being that now was not the time to be cautious.
Eze himself had spoken with England teammates who play for us and had asked them to put in a good word for him. But in the end that was not needed.
Arteta has been growing increasingly enamoured with the idea of bringing Eze in. He was very impressed with Ebs' personality and passion, and felt that he could bring a whole new dimension to the squad.

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[–] Astrealix@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Big moves pay off. Imagine he hadn't made that phone call before he signed for Spurs. Maybe it would've been too late. And now it's a miracle and a dream.