Former Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has ruthlessly mocked Arsenal fans who got carried away by the prospect of signing Real Madrid superstar Vinicius Junior, after the Brazilian committed his future to the Spanish giants with a bumper new deal.

The Gunners opportunistically targeted the 26-year-old forward while he was locked in lengthy contract talks with Real Madrid, and were prepared to make him the highest-paid player in Premier League history if he agreed to the move.

Arsenal fans were bouncing off the walls at the prospect of luring Vinicius Junior away from Madrid, in a move that would have been viewed as one of the most seismic transfers in modern English football history.

Even Mikel Arteta admitted he was ‘absolutely smitten’ with the idea of signing him after the prospective move was approved ‘at all levels’ at the Emirates.

Ultimately, to Arsenal’s disappointment, the Brazilian international penned a new six-year deal at the Bernabeu to commit his future to Real Madrid, calling an end to the 18-month contract saga.

His lucrative new deal reportedly makes Vinicius Junior the second-highest earner at the club, ahead of Jude Bellingham and captain Federico Valverde while narrowly behind superstar forward Kylian Mbappe.

Mikel joked that Arsenal’s proposed signing of Vinicius was never on the cards, insisting they aren’t ‘one of the big boys’ despite winning the Premier League last campaign.

‘Of course, mate. F***ing hell. I don’t know what the Arsenal fans were expecting,’ he said on The Obi One Podcast.

‘You win the league after 22 years and then you all of a sudden think: that’s it, you’ve arrived, you’re one of the big boys again. No, you’re not.

‘They’ve just been humbled because I said it: there’s no way Vinicius Junior is leaving Real Madrid to go to Arsenal, a club that’s won one title in 22 years.

‘This guy wins titles, he’s won lots of titles at Real Madrid. He wants to win titles season after season, the Champions League, La Liga, competing year after year and winning those titles.

‘He’s tasted what it feels like winning the Champions League, Arsenal have never won the Champions League. Zero.

‘You expect a player who has won the Champions League with Real Madrid to leave that, everything that he’s built at Real Madrid, and the squad that Jose Mourinho is assembling right now? They look to me like a team that at the end of the season, you probably see them in the Champions League final.

‘There’s some team there at Real Madrid when you look at the players that they have. You expect him to leave that and go to a team that has won one league title in 22 years? F***ing hell.’

Mikel went on claim that Vinicius simply ‘used’ the north London club to get a new bumper deal at the Bernabeu.

He added: ‘All the Arsenal fans when I said that before, in my DMs, I saw messages, “We’ve clipped this, we’ve sent this video, and when it happens we’re absolutely going to come on here and destroy you…”

‘I was looking at it and thinking that’s just my opinion. I never thought he was going to leave.

‘He was using you guys [Arsenal] to get a better deal, he was using them to get a better deal.

‘I have no idea why Arsenal fans would genuinely believe that Vinicius Junior was going to go from Real Madrid to Arsenal. If you ask anybody… I think it was only Arsenal fans who believed that was going to happen. I don’t know what they were smoking.’

Following last season’s title triumph, Arsenal have bolstered Arteta’s squad with the £75million signing of Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle, alongside Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge and Illan Meslier from Leeds.

It is understood Juventus star Kenan Yildiz and PSG’s Bradley Barcola remain firmly on Arsenal’s summer wishlist, although the latter is also wanted by Liverpool.