View From The Sphere

Arsenal’s top TEN transfers – When Wenger Got it Wrong

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Philippe Senderos

The Swiss defender was signed in 2003 for a reported £2.5 million by Wenger. Senderos was bought into the club at the age of 23, and looked a promising acquisition for the club, but then he met Didier Drogba and since then has never been the same. It’s a real shame that Senderos was given the famous no.6 shirt; he simply didn’t deserve to wear it, and made an absolute mockery of it at the time. wasn’t a stable defender and left the club on a free to sign for Fulham in June this year.

Pascal Cygan

Wenger obtained the bald-headed centre-back from Lille in 2002 for £2 million and it turned out to be one of his worst ever transfers as the Arsenal boss. Cygan was a clumsy defender who lacked positional sense and above all was slower than a tortoise…how he made it as a professional footballer is baffling. The French defender managed to only rack up a total of 63 appearances (in all competitions) for the gunners, whilst netting 3 times in 4 years. Cygan was planets away from being the next Tony Adams, Martin Keown and Steve Bould, the gut just couldn’t defend properly. Arsenal sent the Frenchman packing to Villarreal for £2 million in 2006… Wenger what on earth were you on when you bought this guy to England?

Jose Antonio Reyes

Arsenal splashed out approximately £17 million for the Spanish winger (a record signing for the club at the time) in 2003. Reyes did have a promising start to his Arsenal career and was tipped to be a great player for the club, but unfortunately in 2005 he felt a sudden urge to head back to his native Spain. The winger was also tricked in telling a prankster (on the phone) that he was looking to leave the club due to the London lifestyle and claiming there were ‘bad people’ within the club. Reyes spent three years with the gunners before making a year loan move to Real Madrid, after which he was sold to Atletico Madrid for an undisclosed fee by the Gunners. Reyes would have been a great player for the North London club, but his crave for Spain let him down big time. Wenger did spend £17 million to obtain Reyes’s services, but because the player couldn’t settle in London he proved to be a complete and utter waste of money…a bad signing on Wenger’s part.

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9 comments

  • tarith says:

    all the signings (mistakes) happened when we used 2 win titles…
    all signings are before 2004

  • mic says:

    Couldn’t it be that wats happening now was wat happened then? With all these fans shouting buy buy buy. The media has taken advantage of it to link us with every tom,dick and harry. Fans must have been happy with wenger when he bought those players with some at expensive prices. Thats wat u hear now…wenger needs to spend on ‘world class’ players without thinking if we re going to ve another stephanov,cygan,jeffers,etc. True,the manager will not get it right everytime but allow him do his job even if u won’t support him.

  • Mutua says:

    Sebastian Squillaci and Maroune Chamakh.wat a waste

  • arsene nal says:

    arsene’s a human. when u make so many signings as a manager, not to say the excellent ones that matter like henry viera etc. there are bound to be a few that end up not well. same like for investment u win u lose sometimes

  • Silverose says:

    What about sylvestre,denilson,almunia and squilacci?

  • Hadley says:

    Only Reyes and Jeffers actually cost anything more than pennies and even in those cases we got a substantial amount of it back.

    Wreh actually scored some incredibly important goals in the 98 double year – 3 winners when we won 1-0 during the title run in. Any true Gunner would know that.

    Get your bloody facts right and show some support for your club. You bunch of fair weather cry babies should be ashamed of yourselves, we could still win the league this year ffs and all you do is come out with this negative sh***. No wonder the players have no confidence. F***ing grow some balls

  • Michael C says:

    Your list to me read’s

    Richard Wright – won League and FA Cup with us.

    Francis Jeffers – almost a goal a game at various international levels.

    Oleg Luzhny – Fa Cup winner

    Pascal Cygan – Kept 11 clean sheets in 20 games one season – bought for 1 million, sold for 2 million.

    Jose Antonio Reyes – How the hell did he get on your list? Look at performances in Champions league v Real, Juve, Villareal and even in the final v Barca. Most assists in league, won league and cup whilst here and beaten finalist in champions league.

    Luis Boa Morte – Won FA cup and league

    Christopher Wreh – Won FA Cup and League

    Senderos and Pennant were bought as potential stars – both still in premier league, so cant really argue with that.

    Stepanovs was terrible, simply terrible.

    Thing you have to look at is that many of the above players are players who at the time were performing very well – Reyes, Jeffers and Wright – and at time of purchase we all thought they were great buys aswell, sometimes they just cant perform at a club and they are branded as a poor purchase. For example, would you class Bergkamp as a poor buy? Inter did and sold him to us – hourses for courses mate.

    When you look at the above and complain about his poor buys, I prefer to look at his good buys and the way he has almost single handedly revolusionised not only our club, but english football in general.

    Tell you what mate, why not write a new article tomorrow on his buys, what he bought them for, what he got out of them and what we sold them on for? Please also mention facts, all the facts, not just ones that prove your point of view. I.E we have not won anything for 5 seasons, but in that time we have been to x amount of finals and been 1 game away from winning the league in that time.

    Sorry for the rant, but articles about what he has done wrong just pisses me right off – he is human and will make mistakes.

  • K says:

    Calm down guys, this is only the writers opinion. Although you may not agree with his selection, he still has right to express his views whether they are right or wrong

  • echezona chukwuma says:

    i really liked the guy Francis Jeffers and can’t actually tell why he didn’t make a huge hit,but didnt deserve to be on that list.
    Jose Antonio Reyes????!!!!!
    are you nuts?!!!!!!!
    whats ur standard for evaluating a flop?
    cos am suprised Sebastian Squillaci, denilson,almunia, didn’t make ur list. jesus you didnt even mention Sylvestre

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