How Tottenham inadvertently aided Arsenal's Mesut Özil acquisition | OneFootball

Given the rivalry between the clubs, Tottenham are never going to go out of their way to help Arsenal.

And yet it is their north London enemies who the Gunners can thank for getting their hands on then-record signing Mesut Özil in 2013.

He arrived late on deadline day from Real Madrid, whose own transfer forays led to their need to sell.

But why do Arsenal have Spurs to thank for it? The club’s former transfer guru Dick Law has the details.

“The story of Özil is actually called the story of Gareth Bale,” he said in an exclusive interview with Goal.com.

“For all their firepower, Real really stretched themselves when they bought Bale. They paid an extraordinary amount.

“They gave him an extraordinary contract. That meant they needed to sell somebody so the Bale story leads us to Özil.

“We got signals from Madrid that they had players for sale and their general manager told me they’d consider selling Karim Benzema or Ángel Di María.

“Then we were told [Carlo] Ancelotti didn’t want to sell either of them but he would sell Özil.”

Despite Arsenal then agreeing a deal with the Germany international, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy’s hardball tactics over Bale almost scuppered everything.

“José Ángel Sánchez told us that Levy had called him and said one last condition of the Bale deal was that Madrid couldn’t sell any players to Arsenal,” he added.

“Ivan [Gazidis] thought he was bluffing because he’d already spent the Bale money but we couldn’t take the chance.

“We had to try to keep it very quiet and we even got news that Manchester United would try to cut across the deal but in the end we got it done.”

Özil has won three FA Cups in his six years at the Emirates Stadium, although has lost his record signing tag to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.