Gabriel Martinelli's agent has offered his own account of why the winger left Arsenal for Al Hilal this summer, and it's a rosier version of events than what actually played out at the Emirates.
Speaking to Brazilian outlet Itatiaia, agent Marcos Casseb said Martinelli needed to 'clear his head' and wanted a 'change of scenery,' insisting there were offers on the table to stay in England, plus interest from clubs in Germany and Italy — though he didn't name a single one of them.
"We think his cycle at Arsenal had ended," Casseb said. "It was seven years, he arrived there at 18, and Arsenal went through a huge rebuild. Last year they were Premier League champions. I think he completed his cycle. He arrived young. He was the only player who was there before Arteta, apart from Saka."
That framing glosses over how Martinelli's final months at Arsenal actually unfolded. Arteta's side won the Premier League last season but came up short in the Champions League, and the manager is chasing both a first title defense since 1935 and a competition Arsenal have never won. Martinelli, dropped for spells last season, was earmarked as a player to upgrade on. Christos Tzolis arrived to replace Leandro Trossard, and while Arsenal missed out on Morgan Rogers, Bradley Barcola and Vinícius Júnior, moving Martinelli on was still viewed internally as a net positive.
A Reluctant Departure
The reality is that Martinelli didn't appear eager to leave. It was widely reported over the summer that he turned down Galatasaray because he saw his future in a bigger European league — as Fabrizio Romano put it, he "never considered a move to Türkiye at this stage of his career a realistic option."
By mid-August, reports suggested Martinelli wasn't pushing for an exit, but that if one came, he wanted it to be at a club in England, Spain, France, Germany or Italy. Shortly after that, he didn't even make the bench for Arsenal's opening three league matches — a clear signal from Arteta, and one that made a sale for good money easier to justify.
He ended up in Saudi Arabia instead, where the tax-free wages are hard to match but the competitive level is not remotely comparable to the Süper Lig he'd rejected. Seven rounds into the season, a third of the 18 clubs in the Saudi Pro League are still without a win.
Casseb's version softens all of that. "We thought it was time for him to move, and the club also saw it that way," he said. "It was a very good departure for him and for Arsenal."
It was certainly good business for Arsenal, who raised £60 million ($79.3 million) from the sale — almost doubling their previous club-record fee, a mark set nine years earlier when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain moved to Liverpool.
"Did he get offers? He did, yeah," Casseb added. "We had offers from Italian clubs, we had offers from German clubs and we had offers from other Premier League clubs, but it was a moment when I think he needed and he also wanted to clear his head a bit, to change scenery. He went to the biggest club in Asia to be part of a very ambitious project. You can see it in the players that they have brought in, three players who were at the World Cup, each with their respective national teams and three players that are under 27. That's a trend in Arab football right now, they're changing the way they want to sign players. They've been trying to do that — lower the average age of the league — and their project has attracted a lot of attention. I think it was really important for a change of scenery."
Mixed Returns at Al Hilal
Martinelli has started three of his four appearances since joining Al Hilal, and after some early concern he'd have to fight new signing Crysencio Summerville for the left-wing spot, he's instead been used on the right.
His standout moment came on September 12, when he scored a hat-trick in just 54 minutes as Al Hilal thrashed 17th-placed Al Taawoun 6-0. Elsewhere, his form has been far less convincing. His AFC Champions League Elite debut, a win over Qatar's Al Gharafa, brought no goals, no assists, no chances created and just one shot on target. Five days earlier, Al Hilal had suffered a surprise home defeat to Neom.
On the international stage, Martinelli started only once for Brazil at the World Cup and has been left off the squad for the current international window. Carlo Ancelotti has used some of these friendly windows to experiment, but it's telling that key names like Vinícius Jr, Raphinha, Gabriel, Marquinhos and Bruno Guimarães were all called up as normal. For Martinelli, anything short of consistently strong form in Saudi Arabia may not be enough to keep his place in the picture.
