Arsene Wenger Aims Dig at Bacary Sagna over Manchester City Transfer

Arsene Wenger has questioned why Bacary Sagna chose to join Manchester City over the summer rather than continue with Arsenal, the club at which he made his name.

The Gunners boss aimed a dig at the French right-back who moved to the Sky Blues after his contract at the Emirates expired at the end of last season.

He is the fifth Arsenal player to make the switch to the Etihad in recent years—following Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri—and Wenger expressed his disappointment about the move, per Mike Walters in the Mirror:

What is tiring is to lose players to City or ­somebody else. You will have to ask Sagna why he chose City. I made him a proposal to stay for three years, but he chose them. Had he chosen a long time ago? Maybe – it looks to me like he agreed it a long time before. It is disappointing because he came here as an unknown and he became a French ­international. But I also respect Sagna because, until the last day of his contract with us, he was super-professional.

Sagna arrived at the Emirates for £7 million from Auxerre in the summer of 2007 and went on to make 284 appearances with the Gunners.

During his seven-year spell in North London, he did indeed establish himself as a regular in the French national team and one of the best right-backs in the Premier League.

However, it was not until the end of the 2013-14 season that the 31-year-old finally won some silverware with Arsenal as they beat Hull to win the FA Cup.

While Sagna likely made the switch to be part of a team that would win more trophies, the presence of Pablo Zabaleta at City makes the move a strange one, per the Daily Star's Bruce Archer:

He is highly unlikely to get the game time he did previously with Arsenal—during last term he played in 35 of 38 Premier League games.

Wenger has brought in Mathieu Debuchy from Newcastle as a replacement for Sagna for an estimated £12 million, with the 29-year-old expected to start in Sunday's Community Shield encounter against City, per Squawka's Sam Parker. 

Wenger will be looking to his team to claim a victory to prove to the other Premier League title contenders that they are a force to be reckoned with once more.

Last season Arsenal lost 6-3 to City in the English top flight—and also was beaten heavily by Liverpool and Chelsea—but the addition of the likes of Debuchy and Alexis Sanchez look to have made them stronger going into the new term.

Sagna could be in the lineup to face his former team at Wembley this weekend, and Wenger will be eager to make him regret his move with a strong performance and victory ahead of the start of the Premier League season.