View From The Sphere

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

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Arsene Wenger is known in the transfer market to find the diamonds in the rough. Wenger has found and acquired players from the depths of obscurity and moulded them into footballers of the highest quality in recent years. However, Le Professeur, like everyone else, can’t always get it right and would have probably wished he never signed some of the players that have donned the Arsenal shirt in the past.

This article will list Wenger’s top 10 worst ever transfer signings since taking charge of the North London club 14 years ago.

So, here is that list in chronological order, starting from 1996…enjoy:

Luis Boa Morte

Boa Morte was one of Wenger’s first ever signings as Arsenal boss. The Portuguese attacking winger was brought to the club from Sporting CP for a fee of £1.75 million in 1996. The winger spent 3 years at Arsenal making a total of 37 appearances and scoring just the 4 times for the gunners. He wasn’t a speedy winger, or a super-sub and was certainly not a good finisher…nothing special at all. With every passing year, Boa Morte saw less and less of the football pitch, and was eventually flogged off to Southampton for a fee of £500,000…a total flop for Arsenal football club.

Christopher Wreh

Wenger knew of Wreh when he was manager of Monaco and brought the striker to Arsenal from the French side in 1997 for £300,000. Wreh was merely a back-up striker and was fourth in the pecking order behind Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp and Nicolas Anelka…So why Wenger drafted him in was beyond me. However, Wreh did manage to score some vital goals for the Gunners, but as the years went by, Wenger brought in a Frenchman by the name of Thierry Henry, which eventually saw Wreh leave Highbury in 2000. The Liberian forward’s record for Arsenal stands at 46 appearances (mainly as a substitute) and netting just the 5 times in 3 years…Not a good record at all.

Oleg Luzhny

The Ukrainian was dubbed by many as ‘the horse’ and boy did he live up to that name. Wenger recruited Luzhny from Dynamo Kiev in 1999 for £1.8 million and was supposed to be a long-term replacement for the legendary Arsenal right-back Lee Dixon. Unfortunately, his lack of pace proved to be disastrous in the English game and was never comfortable playing for the gunners in his 4 year stay. His willingness and desire was admirable, but it never hid the fact that he was just not an Arsenal player.

Continue to page 2 for the rest of the list

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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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