Yeah I think the thing with his parents was just something that club sources leaked when Arsenal started getting heat over the way they treated him. His mom had died but his dad is still alive I think. And the mom had died a year before he arrived in London. I'm not saying it can't have affected him, but even if family were the reason for us not playing him, why didn't we let him go back to France then instead of having him in London and not registering him for any competitions?
His shirt number then got taken away because he criticised Arteta on instagram, which is well petty, and given to another young defender who we spent £50 million on. It's hard to interpret our actions as anything but a huge fuck you.
I bet it all started when we blocked him from playing the French cup final just because we realised that due to a technicality we wouldn't have to pay St Etienne the full transfer fee if he sat it out. Everyone assumed from the beginning that we were going to pay it because he was a regular player for them. Then he fractured his foot and didn't quite reach the needed number of starts to activate the clause, and we saw an opportunity to save a dime at the expense of blocking him from playing the biggest game of his career.
