When Juventus moved for and eventually bought Felipe Melo this summer, a lot of people wondered why such a huge transfer could seemingly come out of nowhere.
Not only was it because Juve had never been linked to the Brazilian midfielder at all the weekend before it went down, but because it was so incredibly soon after the deal for Gaetano D'Agostino went up in smoke.
The deal has obviously been a total bust. While D'Agostino hasn't exactly been lighting Serie A on fire with Udinese this season, Melo's performances haven't been anything to write home about, either. He has been yet another one of the famed Alessio Secco big-money transfer flops.
His calling card this season hasn't been dominating performances in the midfield. In fact, they've been far from it. He has routinely racked up stupid fouls, silly bookings, and a habit of turning the ball over numerous times a game.
But could there really be a third party that would break up this dysfunctional marriage?
Arsene Wenger, come on down.
For the second straight year, it looks like Wenger is going to be chasing Melo on the transfer market. It's no surprise considering that last summer Melo looked like he was on his way to London until Secco walked in with his briefcase full of cash and agreed to pay the €25 million out clause.
So what does this mean for Juventus? Would they really come out, admit they were wrong, and start negotiating with Arsenal? They should seriously consider it.
Why? It's pretty simple.
The team that Secco has tried to assemble since Juventus returned to Serie A has been far from an effective one. His transfer blunders have cost the club millions every year without much return. Secco has spent millions upon millions on offense, the defense continues to be a black hole of failure.
If they want to rebuild the defense, along with a whole lot of other places on the squad, there's only one way to do it—a huge amount of firepower in your wallet.
Juve aren't going to get the kind of money in return that they paid for him last summer. That's pretty easy to figure out considering how he has played. Seeing how Melo is one of the few players that would bring in a decent amount of money, selling him would definitely be beneficial in the long run.
Secco not only needs to buy young players who can develop together as they get older, but they need to buy players that will stay for the long term. They need a young, strong core of some of the best Italian talents like they used to have when Luciano Moggi was in charge.
On top of that, the players Secco brings in this summer must fit the system that the next Juve coach will run. Melo wasn't one of those players that then-manager Ciro Ferrara wanted. The former Juve coach made it pretty clear that he wanted Secco to buy a regista like D'Agostino, not a defensive midfielder like Melo.
Yeah, not exactly giving your coach the kind of weapons he knows he needs to get the best out of his team and meet the kind of expectations that everybody is setting.
Secco can't afford to make that kind of mistake again.
Will selling Melo actually happen? Who knows. But with Wenger saying that he is still interested in Melo after a season where his faults have clearly been exposed, that says something about what the Arsenal manager thinks of him.
It's not exactly the "buy low, sell high" way of doing business now, is it? In fact, it's basically the opposite way of thinking—buy Melo for a huge price and then hope that you can spin him to another club and recover as much of the original transfer fee as possible.
At the same time, though, can Juventus really afford to have Melo play another season like he has played during this one and risk his price going even lower?
Danny Penza is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, the open source sports network.
