The greatest player Arsene Wenger never signed, but I bet he would have….

Morning all.

I think it’s fair to say that Dennis Bergkamp is the best player Arsenal have ever had at the club. The ‘Milan flop’ as he was referred to back in the mid nineties, became a fans favourite and not just the Arsenal ones. His vision, intelligence, movement and footballing brain was out there in a world of it’s own. He was simply brilliant, yet he’s one player Arsene Wenger can’t take credit for, well, not for bring to the club that’s for sure. That was down to David Dein and the then manager Bruce Rioch. Some of you might argue that Thierry Henry was better and that’s fine.

But the funny thing is, had Bergkamp not been at Arsenal when Arsene Wenger arrived, he was the exact kind of player he did sign. Not talent wise, but someone who was clearly a classy footballer but who was struggling to get the best out of himself at the club he was playing for.

We’ve seen some top top quality players come and go over the years and we’ve been lucky to witness them wearing the red and white of our famous club. We’ve seen some duffers too, plenty of them but I’m in a positive mood today, so I’ll focus on the good and great who have arrived over the last twenty years.

The first ten years of Arsene Wenger’s reign was the best, certainly the most successful. We even managed a Champions League Cup Final but Lady Luck wasn’t on our side and that night, she was dressed in black and blew her whistle for fun and dished out a red card which was dubious to say the least. Not for the first time I hasten to add, especially when it looked like we might get the better of UEFA’s love team, Barcelona… I digress.

Arsene’s first summer transfer window was busy. He sent Paul Merson packing to Boro which was a bit of a surprise and in came Marc Overmars, Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira and a few others, but those turned out to be the standout players imo. The following summer was quiet with just two signings, neither of which made any kind of impact.

Fredrik Ljungberg, Nwankwo Kanu and a few more ‘flops’ followed the summer after and they loved life at the club and we the fans loved them. 1999 and another ‘flop’ who was shipped over from Italy signed up and together with Ralph Lauren, Thierry Henry set the world alight in some fashion. A dream kind of signing these days.

Next in the year after was Edu and Robert Pires. Super players but sadly can’t say the same of the rest who made the move to Arsenal that summer. Twelve months later, Giovanni Van Bronckhorst and Kolo Toure made the move to north London, two more players who did rather well for their new club as did Big Sol Campbell who we nicked off the neighbours for free. I bet that hurt!

Gilberto Silva joined us in 2002 and then the following year, Arsene Wenger went big. Not so much in monetary terms but in players. Or that’s how they turned out. Cesc Fabregas, Jens Lehmann, Gael Clichy, Jose Reyes and Robin van Persie all became Arsenal players as did a few others but I’ll forget those….

If that summer/January was a busy one, the following was equally as busy. Tomas Rosicky, Mart Poom, Theo Walcott, Emmanuel Adebayor, Vassiriki Diaby, Aleksandr Hleb, Armand Traore, Vito Mannone and Nicklas Bendtner – not all who really excelled for one reason or another.

Then we said goodbye to Highbury and hello to The Emirates…..

Eduardo was the pick of the first transfer window after the move, Gallas arrived too but at the expense of losing Ashley Cole. A terrible deal, possibly the worst the club made during Arsene Wenger’s tenure but I’m not sure if he can be blamed for that one.

Ramsey, Sagna, Nasri and Diarra were a few of the next summer signings but the latter didn’t last long which again was a shame as we could have done with him staying put back then. Then we saw a few odd players join the club, Sylvestre, Bischoff and then Arshavin the following January. Thomas Vermaelen arrived the following summer and Big Sol returned too before Laurent Koscielny arrived a few months later from France. Chamakh breezed in for free then too.

Panic set in after an 8-2 thrashing at Old Trafford – Carl Jenkinson, Gervinho and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain joined us early in the summer and then on the final days of the transfer window, Joel Campbell, Park Chu-Young, André Santos, Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker all became Arsenal players.

Another stupid and unforgivable sale was that of Robin van Persie to Man Utd but the club tried to placate the fans by signing Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud, Santi Cazorla and Nacho Monreal. Not bad but could have been better.

If one panic was bad enough, another came soon after. Mesut Ozil, a signing which I’ll never be convinced was planned. Not that I knocked it at the time although he could have done with being joined by a quality striker. No, we got Yaya Sanogo and Mathieu Flamini for free. The following year saw another big spend with Mathieu Debuchy,
Alexis Sánchez, David Ospina, Calum Chambers, Danny Welbeck, Krystian Bielik and Gabriel Paulista all arriving at the club. Petr Cech made the move across London the following summer before Gabriel joined us the following January.

Finally, Granit Xhaka, Takuma Asano, Rob Holding, Lucas Pérez, Shkodran Mustafi and young unknown Cohen Bramall who is tipped to be in the same mould as Ashley Cole were the last to arrive at the club..

Now it’s 2017, the transfer window is soon to open and rumours are flying around everywhere, just as Ivan and Arsene have been doing and someone has spotted them in France together. I can’t imagine for one minute that the two have taken a short break together for pleasure so we can only assume that they are there for business.

Will it be for Kylian Mbappe, Alexandre Lacazette, Thomas Lemar, some other French player or are they just trying to hunt down Yaya Sanogo? I jest of course as he’s gone…..

But I wonder what kind of summer we can expect from the club. Signings which show intent and ambition or a few cheap ones which we hope and pray will turn out to be the real deal?

PS. If you want to see and/or count the duffers we’ve signed under Arsene Wenger, there’s a long long list HERE. Enjoy!