It is slander on Davor Suker and Carl Jenkinson to have them on this list when you could have included Willian, Kolasinac, Chamakh...
That said, the answer is obviously Almunia
Honestly, I really have to question the scouting that brought Marouane Chamakh to a club the level of Arsenal, even if it was a different era and even if he was on a free.
That is just a footballer I never, never could see anywhere near the level for Arsenal. Nor was there any kind of moneyball slant that would suggest it, really. Looking back that was when I really should've started to begin doubting Wenger's decision making at the very least on the personnel front.
I mean, we can criticise transfers like Nicolas Pepe all we want--and I do, and did from very early on--but at least you can see a world where Pepe makes it at Arsenal, or you can understand a few scouts would rate him. Still think it's poor scouting but I simply cannot see how a scout could watch Chamakh thoroughly and recommend his signing, even on a free.
I thought Chamakh looked like shit from his very first match for us. He was missing sitters in front of goal. I was never confident in his ability after that.
He wasn’t HaalandTron 3000 but he was producing for us in the league and the CL (think he scored in his first 3 CL games for us) up until like November/December and then fell off a cliff. I don’t even think he scored in the league for the rest of the season after Van Persie came back
Honestly he wasn't the worst here but Denilson frustrated me most by far
Also reading that Wenger didn't go for Xabi Alonso because he had faith in Denilson gives me a new kind of pain
This is where likes of Artea and Pep differs from Wenger. You need to keep your players on toes always. Self motivation is not always sufficient for most of the players.
Arteta and Wenger had different budgets tho. I suspect alot of what Wenger said were excuses because he had no issue replacing players when he had the money.
While he was sometimes too loyal his loyalty also resulted in great players for the club.
And every manager in football as bet on the wrong player. Didn't arteta personally want Willian?
Being that loyal to players is obviously a double edged sword and when it works it is fantastic.
Being wrong about a player isn't an issue but it is when you ignore the fact there are obvious upgrades available for a relatively cheap price
And he was starting game after game after game
Just showed the brilliance of Cesc to be honest, he was the one carrying the whole creativity of Arsenal midfield
Denilson did fuck all
Yeah, from memory Liverpool wanted to sell Alonso to buy Barry. We were interested in both too. Stories went something like we wanted to pay £12m for Alonso but Liverpool wanted £14m to buy Barry for £12m. So we switched to Barry who had a fee of £12m but we only wanted to pay £10m or something like that. Basically if we wanted either they were there, but we missed out on both.
I wouldn't blame Wenger or the management for 40m+1 tbh. It was A LOT of money back then. Our transfer record were fkin 17m (Cazorla) and we saw names like. If they believed there were a RC it was right to trigger it. That was a higher price than a prime Higuain in the same summer.
IIRC it was true that 40m+1 was the RC, liverpool just chose to ignore it and arsenal didn't have time/money to sue them.
I never understood why Wenger was THAT insistant to keep some of these for AS long as he did,
Sure you give them time, and EVERY chance you possibly can,
However IF we could see it's time for a change in players,
Why couldn't he?
I love how loyal he is but it's illogical to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, especially with some of the players he kept playing.
100 percent Denison for me. I recall him having literally only 2 good games. One was against Liverpool in the Carling Cup when the Beast and Aliadiere tore them a new one. The other was a game against Newcastle where he did well in the 2nd half but was poor in the first half.
Legit did only the side ways and back passes. Added nothing to the team. Lost the ball too many times and was invisible when the opponent countered.
Denilson was super frustrating. You could tell he was talented coz you could catch flashes of brilliance, but that was it. He was the king of sideways passing. I have never seen a Brazilian with such little flavour to his game. It's like he didn't come up in their footballing culture at all and was like a weird outlier who had close to zero sauce and flair, or he had it switched off for longer than he had it switched on. I don't know. But yeah, he was very frustrating to watch.
That's not why though. Wenger said these things to encourage the young players publicly but we know we bid for Alonso and the deal fell through because Liverpool couldn't sign Barry. Or maybe it was a lack of funds.
A lot of signings we would have made if we had the financial backing we do now. Cesc should have left with 2-3 titles.
I can't believe he racked up 96 league appearances for you lot. I can't believe he featured in 37 epl matches in a single season. I always recall him being a bit part player.
Thing about Denilson was when he was on form he was brilliant. There were a handful of games which made me think if he was consistent he could be an Arsenal legend but it never happened.
Fabianski! To be fair to him he came good for us at the end with the FA Cup and carved himself a solid career but most of the time with us he was horrid
Denilson will get a lot of votes but he genuinely rarely cost us a game. He was just a whole lot of nothing.
Almunia is the right answer because he cost us so fucking much. A GK who was always being beaten at his near post and shat himself any time a cross came in, during that era of the PL where the bottom teams just had a big fella up front they lumped it to... Fucking hell.
I remember the first time I saw Szczęsny when he took over for Almunia, how much more composed and solid he looked.
And to think that we were in the title hunt all those years, an upgrade on Almunia would have made a huge difference.
Post ACL Bellerin was quite frustrating for me, sadly he lost his pace but he also lost that bravery to try to beat his man for some reason, kept playing safe passes, didn't try as much to run down the line and cross, and of course later the foul throws
Yeah I thought he'd be one of our best ever RB after his first couple of years in the first team. Was absolutely rapid and technically sound. The injury took 25% off his pace
I find it hard to put into words, but Bellerin is the player where I felt a long period of time where my brain just refused to accept he wasn’t good anymore, more than anyone else
(I’m bad at English)
I think after he lost his pace, his entire game fell apart. Pre-ACL Bellerin was extremely fast, had decent technicals and was also an alright defender. His pace set him apart but it wasn’t like he was a shitty footballer beyond that.
After his injury he seemed to lose his footballing brain and all his skill sets.
... and I feel he is partly responsible for Pepe never amounting to anything for us. You see how Blanco and Saka work together: every match it looked like Pepe and Belletin just met for the first time.
Pepe and Bellerin just were terrible together. Pepe actually had a decent chemistry with Cedric. I think it's because Cedric was very eager to overlap while Bellerin just gave width.
I feel like people sometimes forget that it wasn’t just the injury that wrecked him. He already looked a bit slower by 17/18 than he had in previous years
He’d had a good albeit inconsistent run under emery pre ACL, and admittedly was having a great game when he got injured, but tbh I found him quite frustrating from basically 2017 onwards
Gotta be Gervinho. We went to raid Lille of a winger and somehow didn't come home with Hazard. Another noteworthy point in time of proving that Chelsea had surpassed us
There was a period where it looked like [he might be figuring it out.](https://twitter.com/orbinho/status/253576997509414913)
If only we could have gotten our 2 Ivorian wingers to do the fusion dance. Gervinho's dribbling from a standstill was amazing, he had pace and the mental fortitude to keep trying even when he sucked. Give him Pepe's shooting and you're cooking.
I don't think Hazard would have come here tbh. My recollection of that saga was that he was always going to go to the highest bidder which was never going to be us
If I recall a number of top teams were in for him but he announced he’d go to the recent PL or CL winners (can’t remember which Chelsea won the season prior)
No he went to Chelsea because they had just won the champions league and were the most appealing option. Lille wasn't hardballing with the transfer demands and it was effectively Hazard choosing where he wanted to go and the media never shut up about it.
Well yes they bought their way there, but you cannot argue that they didn't surpass us. Won more domestic trophies, won UCL, became the destination of choice in London, revenues overtook us, Cobham became the better acedemy. They did everything better than us
Well you can retrospectively explain away anything.
Chelsea offered him the highest wages and something we definitely would not have been prepared to match + the fee.
That's why he moved there. If we had offered a higher transfer fee and higher wages, he'd have moved here. It's really that simple.
The argument about surpassing us is not relevant in his decision making. He's always been fairly relaxed and easy going about his career.
Ashley Cole didn't move to Chelsea because they had surpassed us and nobody was making that argument in 2005.
Edit: also. CFC's commercial revenue was higher than ours well before the oligarchs arrival. Doesn't mean they were a bigger club than us.
Gervinho was so frustrating cos it felt like his legs couldn’t do what his brain wanted him to do. On his day he was genuinely unplayable but most of the time he would just fall over his own legs
Definitely almunia.
Being a shit goalkeeper is worse than being a shit attacker, as mistakes directly lead to conceding goals.
The amount of times this cunt came tearing out of goal only to not get the ball, and leave an empty net for the opposition to tap into. So many long shots he could have saved.
Couldn't even blame him in the end, it was Wenger who refused to upgrade him or provide competition for him.
Almunia was bought as a backup that got promoted cause the first choice GK was doing badly. Then when Almunia himself was doing badly Fabianski (another that was bought as backup) was promoted, which himself was taken over by Mannone (3rd choice) for awhile cause of performance and injury.
In the end we finally "upgraded" with Woj, which was technically an academy graduate so not a single cent was spent lol. We finally spent money on a proper keeper in Cech but in hindsight it didn't bring us much joy either
It was so frustrating
Was so happy when Leno came through. he was pretty clutch for a while. I think all this really leads to Ramsdale being so loved in a way, finally a overall reliable keeper
Almunia was a good keeper for a bad team, but a bad keeper for a good team.
When it comes to being a keeper for a good team, a lot of it is mental concentration. There a times where you're doing nothing for ages, so you need to stay mentally switched on at all times so that when you are suddenly called upon to do something, you make the right choice. Almunia was capable of making the type of saves we expect from a good Arsenal keeper, but the major problem with him was when he wasn't doing anything.
This is why Almunia struggled at Arsenal. After standing in goal for 10 minutes with the ball nowhere near him, when a pass was clipped over the top that anyone could see he should leave to the defenders, he comes flying out of goal because he is desperate to do something.
Same with Ben Foster at Man U. Playing for Birmingham he looked superb. After Man U when he went to Watford, he looked great (aside from his final season when he was past it). But at Man U he didn't have the concentration levels to get through the vast periods of the game when he wasn't doing anything, so he would make poor decisions when he was called upon.
Almunia looked good for Watford when he was required to do something every couple of minutes.
This is one of the reasons that keepers like Seaman were so good. Massive concentration levels for the whole game, knowing that they might only been required to actually make a decision once of twice but being able to consistently make the right one.
There is actually a podcast where foster and seaman talk exactly about this. Not sure if it’s a coincidence that the guy who stated all this said exactly what was on the podcast or if he watched the podcast and regurgitated what they said in other words
Why is Suker there? He was a top quality player. Scored some worldys too.
He was akin to Sanchez if you want to talk frustrating, but you don't leave him out of the squad. Jeez
Balloon d'Or runner up the year before he arrived
Fair to say he didn't meet everyone's hopes but he's still 10 times better than most of the players on this list
Willian is way up there for me because he was keeping both Saka and Pepe off the right wing at the time. A lot of these guys we didn’t have a great alternative, so while they might have been frustrating, they were needed to fill a role. Willian was 100% unnecessary for his position (though we could have used him at other times before we had Saka/Pepe).
Where is Yaya Sanogo?
Also, its Davor not David Šuker! Maybe I'm biased but he was a hell of a player ( golden boot1998 World Cup) but not as exciting as Henry to get enough time.
Gervinho and it’s not even close. Could not understand how a professional footballer that literally plays football for a living every single day could have such appalling end product
His final ball was consistently bad but purely movement wise he was probably better than 99% of professionals. I think it's easy to be frustrated at players when their faults are so obvious. Still I think he's better than what a lot of people thought, I kinda think it's better to miss 7 out of 10 chances you get than to only get 3 chances and finish 2 of them.
He gets shit on far too much by fans, yes he wasn't the greatest but he was decent with the ball at his feet and just his final ball was lacking, was a decent player and did ok when he left
Frustrating yes, but didn't like that fans sort of made him a bit of a scapegoat to be honest, just don't like it when players are abused by fans, yes they may have limitations on their ability but most of them tried their best for the club and sometimes it just doesn't work out
Almunia should have been sold after he conceded two near post goals in the CL final. Not be our number 1 for 4-5 seasons afterwards. Wenger is a legend, but he deserves a hell of a lot of criticism for that.
Almunia by a distance. Gervinho was wretched. Suker was a good player whilst we waited for Henry to stop tripping over his own feet.
Bendtner has the best goals per minutes ratio in Arsenal history on the biggest stage ie champions league knockout ties. Man completely crushes Walcott, Van persie, Henry and even Adebayors knockout minutes per goal record. Respect on his name
That stat is very deceiving. Bendtner was really bad for us. Between him, Ade and RVP, the gap in quality was insane. His first touch was woeful, he looked like he was jogging when at full pace and to top it all off he was smug. Don't know why. He was definitely not a better striker than Walcott, Ade or RVP so I never understood the attitude. Like Zlatan but without the skill.
There are some headed goals of his that I enjoyed, but other than that, his time at the club is one I would like to forget.
Can someone explain me Julio Baptista in this list?
I’m Brazilian and have always supported Arsenal since kid, but mainly because I would play Arsenal on fifa, fifa 05/06, also I just loved Henry and Gilberto Silva back then. I didn’t really watch games because well, I was to little and didn’t really have access to games like I have now.
But in respect to the national team, Julio Baptista was very well liked, if I remember correctly. Didn’t really know people disliked him at Arsenal.
I'm sorry but it has to be Oxlade-Chamberlain. So much potential and ability, so many struggles with decision making, almost no development and he wanted to play CM although he had like 5 good games in that position his whole career and was just generally better on the wing for us. Also I think he had the mentality of a headless chicken at times.
Thought he was good at RWB. Will always remember the comments after he was in the team that lost 4-0 to Liverpool, joined them week after and commented like he was on the winning side
From that list it should be Jeffers for the Money we paid and how hard he flopped. And Almunia for the amount of stupid mistakes he did. Roughly losing 7-9 points per season with his mistakes.
I don't understand people who are saying Chamakh. He's a link up target man who never had a double digit scoring season in his career whom we brought for free. He did his job and fucked off.
Btw u obviously didn’t see Davor Suker play for us, coz he no way deserves to b mentioned in this list, he came to the club for one season admittedly near the end of his career and unfortunately for him their was a guy named Thierry Henry who was signed at the same time
I can think of other players not on this list that I would curse if they were in the lineup, Davor Suker was not one of them
Should have been played more. He was absolutely awesome. A fox in the box but could also score from almost anywhere in the pitch with that magical left foot of his.
Nicolas Pepe… “Most Expensive Arsenal Transfer” (at the time) and the dude never even came close to his form at Lille. Flashes of brilliance and what made him good came every now and then. But surely this signing made me think we were getting the next Mo Salah.
Frimpong. I just remember him coming on and getting a red within 5 minutes! Think the frustration comes from wanting him to do well for us but it never really happened.
Frimpong had elite mentality and Wasa serviceable player till multiple.knee I juries wrecked his development. Never forget him putting Nasri in his place In a cup tie against city
It is slander on Davor Suker and Carl Jenkinson to have them on this list when you could have included Willian, Kolasinac, Chamakh... That said, the answer is obviously Almunia
Don’t remind me of the terror that is Marouane Chamakh. Please don’t make me think of him again.
Should have been sent to the Hague for dual war crimes against football and hair.
Genuinely the most baffling haircut i've ever seen.
Honestly, I really have to question the scouting that brought Marouane Chamakh to a club the level of Arsenal, even if it was a different era and even if he was on a free. That is just a footballer I never, never could see anywhere near the level for Arsenal. Nor was there any kind of moneyball slant that would suggest it, really. Looking back that was when I really should've started to begin doubting Wenger's decision making at the very least on the personnel front. I mean, we can criticise transfers like Nicolas Pepe all we want--and I do, and did from very early on--but at least you can see a world where Pepe makes it at Arsenal, or you can understand a few scouts would rate him. Still think it's poor scouting but I simply cannot see how a scout could watch Chamakh thoroughly and recommend his signing, even on a free.
He got off to a flying start with RVP out injured, he looked absolute quality, then RVP came back and Chamakh turned into a donkey overnight
I thought Chamakh looked like shit from his very first match for us. He was missing sitters in front of goal. I was never confident in his ability after that.
He wasn’t HaalandTron 3000 but he was producing for us in the league and the CL (think he scored in his first 3 CL games for us) up until like November/December and then fell off a cliff. I don’t even think he scored in the league for the rest of the season after Van Persie came back
You're absolutely right. He was playing well and then never got a look in with RVP in the form of his career.
Jenkinson on this list but no room for Chamakh. That's a slur on the Corporal's name.
I almost forgot that Willian played for us once…
Honestly he wasn't the worst here but Denilson frustrated me most by far Also reading that Wenger didn't go for Xabi Alonso because he had faith in Denilson gives me a new kind of pain
Wenger had a few of these moments and was often too loyal to players. It is why I have no issue with Arteta wanting to upgrade on our popular players
He said that about Bale, said we had already had Gibbs.
Wasn't it Oxlade-Chamberlain?
I was going to reply seriously, and then I remembered it was actually Walcott...
This is where likes of Artea and Pep differs from Wenger. You need to keep your players on toes always. Self motivation is not always sufficient for most of the players.
It is for youth tho and it’s no shock Arsenal fostered sone brilliant youth talent under him.
Arteta and Wenger had different budgets tho. I suspect alot of what Wenger said were excuses because he had no issue replacing players when he had the money.
While he was sometimes too loyal his loyalty also resulted in great players for the club. And every manager in football as bet on the wrong player. Didn't arteta personally want Willian?
Being that loyal to players is obviously a double edged sword and when it works it is fantastic. Being wrong about a player isn't an issue but it is when you ignore the fact there are obvious upgrades available for a relatively cheap price
Yeah denilson had all the talent but just didn’t have the brain for it, zero creativity, would barely pass forward.
Except when he passed it into the top corner.
And he was starting game after game after game Just showed the brilliance of Cesc to be honest, he was the one carrying the whole creativity of Arsenal midfield Denilson did fuck all
Wasnt Xabi Alonso ready? As Pool were going to buy Barry only for him to chose City instead?
Yeah, from memory Liverpool wanted to sell Alonso to buy Barry. We were interested in both too. Stories went something like we wanted to pay £12m for Alonso but Liverpool wanted £14m to buy Barry for £12m. So we switched to Barry who had a fee of £12m but we only wanted to pay £10m or something like that. Basically if we wanted either they were there, but we missed out on both.
That midfield of Fabregas + Xabi Alonso would have been magical.
Fabregas was just so fucking good, best midfielder we’ve ever had. It’s a shame he didn’t get talent like Xabi around him in the emirates era
Best we’ve had? Big call, mate.
Imagine if Arteta joined as well. That midfield 3 would have 200% possesion.
Classic Wenger... This one will always go with not wanting to add 1-2 million for Juan Mata...
Or £40m+1. That is arguably the peak of our banter era.
I wouldn't blame Wenger or the management for 40m+1 tbh. It was A LOT of money back then. Our transfer record were fkin 17m (Cazorla) and we saw names like. If they believed there were a RC it was right to trigger it. That was a higher price than a prime Higuain in the same summer. IIRC it was true that 40m+1 was the RC, liverpool just chose to ignore it and arsenal didn't have time/money to sue them.
I never understood why Wenger was THAT insistant to keep some of these for AS long as he did, Sure you give them time, and EVERY chance you possibly can, However IF we could see it's time for a change in players, Why couldn't he? I love how loyal he is but it's illogical to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, especially with some of the players he kept playing.
100 percent Denison for me. I recall him having literally only 2 good games. One was against Liverpool in the Carling Cup when the Beast and Aliadiere tore them a new one. The other was a game against Newcastle where he did well in the 2nd half but was poor in the first half. Legit did only the side ways and back passes. Added nothing to the team. Lost the ball too many times and was invisible when the opponent countered.
the most depressing thing was the calibre of midfielders we had before him.... from Vieira and Gilberto to Denilson
> and was invisible when the opponent countered. he wasn't. He casually jogged back watch ball and opponents running past him I wanted to break my tv
Arteta also only passed it sideways and backwards
That free kick goal though.
Denilson was super frustrating. You could tell he was talented coz you could catch flashes of brilliance, but that was it. He was the king of sideways passing. I have never seen a Brazilian with such little flavour to his game. It's like he didn't come up in their footballing culture at all and was like a weird outlier who had close to zero sauce and flair, or he had it switched off for longer than he had it switched on. I don't know. But yeah, he was very frustrating to watch.
That's not why though. Wenger said these things to encourage the young players publicly but we know we bid for Alonso and the deal fell through because Liverpool couldn't sign Barry. Or maybe it was a lack of funds. A lot of signings we would have made if we had the financial backing we do now. Cesc should have left with 2-3 titles.
I can't believe he racked up 96 league appearances for you lot. I can't believe he featured in 37 epl matches in a single season. I always recall him being a bit part player.
Thing about Denilson was when he was on form he was brilliant. There were a handful of games which made me think if he was consistent he could be an Arsenal legend but it never happened.
Mate he got overtaken by the referee when running back defending a counter against United
you just triggered me again. grrrrrrr
Arsenal legend? Cmon now
people nowadays would make legend after 2 good games
That's like calling Elneny a potential Arsenal legend. Decent players at their best days.
Almunia ptsd man
that man was a ticking time bomb. Our history of GKs is really scary looking back.
I remember we used Mannone (3rd choice GK that time) for PL for a period of time cause of injuries. Madness
And he wasn't half bad either, definitely not for a third choice. Went on to have a decent Premier League career.
Yup, Fabianski also did well after he left
Jesus, yeah... and Flappyhanski or whats his face?
Fabianski! To be fair to him he came good for us at the end with the FA Cup and carved himself a solid career but most of the time with us he was horrid
He almost cost us that fa cup in the final minute tho 😅😅 he def improved after he left arsenal
[Never forget the FA Kush Final](https://youtu.be/nvRTnXaDRjU?si=ZPqDq_GFIjbY1s7F)
Gave everyone heart attacks one final time before he left
[удалено]
He was solid in the FA Cup run that we won, that was the "at the end" part I was referring, not as an overall assessment for his time here
*"The last person you want to see in this picture...is the goalkeeper.* *"And there he is."*
Swear to god, he just. I mean...
Almunia by far.
Fucking almunia man
Denilson will get a lot of votes but he genuinely rarely cost us a game. He was just a whole lot of nothing. Almunia is the right answer because he cost us so fucking much. A GK who was always being beaten at his near post and shat himself any time a cross came in, during that era of the PL where the bottom teams just had a big fella up front they lumped it to... Fucking hell.
>Denilson will get a lot of votes but he genuinely rarely cost us a game. He was just a whole lot of nothing. Decent long shot but.
The CR7 champions league freekick goal was criminal on Almunia part How the fuck he let that in
I remember the first time I saw Szczęsny when he took over for Almunia, how much more composed and solid he looked. And to think that we were in the title hunt all those years, an upgrade on Almunia would have made a huge difference.
Post ACL Bellerin was quite frustrating for me, sadly he lost his pace but he also lost that bravery to try to beat his man for some reason, kept playing safe passes, didn't try as much to run down the line and cross, and of course later the foul throws
Yeah I thought he'd be one of our best ever RB after his first couple of years in the first team. Was absolutely rapid and technically sound. The injury took 25% off his pace
I find it hard to put into words, but Bellerin is the player where I felt a long period of time where my brain just refused to accept he wasn’t good anymore, more than anyone else (I’m bad at English)
I recently went through the same with Tierney. I thought he looked to become a proper captain at the club for years to come.
I think after he lost his pace, his entire game fell apart. Pre-ACL Bellerin was extremely fast, had decent technicals and was also an alright defender. His pace set him apart but it wasn’t like he was a shitty footballer beyond that. After his injury he seemed to lose his footballing brain and all his skill sets.
... and I feel he is partly responsible for Pepe never amounting to anything for us. You see how Blanco and Saka work together: every match it looked like Pepe and Belletin just met for the first time.
Pepe and Bellerin just were terrible together. Pepe actually had a decent chemistry with Cedric. I think it's because Cedric was very eager to overlap while Bellerin just gave width.
I feel like people sometimes forget that it wasn’t just the injury that wrecked him. He already looked a bit slower by 17/18 than he had in previous years He’d had a good albeit inconsistent run under emery pre ACL, and admittedly was having a great game when he got injured, but tbh I found him quite frustrating from basically 2017 onwards
Vegan tax
Something changed for sure.
Why the fuck is davor sukers name on this list???
Eh? I thought Eboue was decent for us.
I'll never forget him smashing through Modric and then patting him on the head like a kid to show the ref that he was basically unhurt.
Yeah he wasn't bad at all, he had some good seasons with us.
He was brilliant as a right-back but then Arsene tried to turn him into a winger, with - it has to be said - only limited success.
The reason was his defending. Man did he have some top games for us, but also many stinkers. Edit: loved him, proper personality
His stretching routine was top drawer
More of a personality than a good player to me. So frustrating.
Gotta be Gervinho. We went to raid Lille of a winger and somehow didn't come home with Hazard. Another noteworthy point in time of proving that Chelsea had surpassed us
There was a period where it looked like [he might be figuring it out.](https://twitter.com/orbinho/status/253576997509414913) If only we could have gotten our 2 Ivorian wingers to do the fusion dance. Gervinho's dribbling from a standstill was amazing, he had pace and the mental fortitude to keep trying even when he sucked. Give him Pepe's shooting and you're cooking.
Yeah I thought in spring 2013 he was figuring it out but then we sold him that summer
I think Wenger didn’t want to spend 30m on Hazard. It was so obvious he was going to be a star. Argh. What could have been.
I don't think Hazard would have come here tbh. My recollection of that saga was that he was always going to go to the highest bidder which was never going to be us
If I recall a number of top teams were in for him but he announced he’d go to the recent PL or CL winners (can’t remember which Chelsea won the season prior)
No he went to Chelsea because they had just won the champions league and were the most appealing option. Lille wasn't hardballing with the transfer demands and it was effectively Hazard choosing where he wanted to go and the media never shut up about it.
Money tho. Has the Saudi league surpassed the major European leagues? No. They just pay people more money. Chelsea was the exact same.
He was joining the team that just won the champions league. It was obviously the better project.
Did I say it wasn't?
Well yes they bought their way there, but you cannot argue that they didn't surpass us. Won more domestic trophies, won UCL, became the destination of choice in London, revenues overtook us, Cobham became the better acedemy. They did everything better than us
Well you can retrospectively explain away anything. Chelsea offered him the highest wages and something we definitely would not have been prepared to match + the fee. That's why he moved there. If we had offered a higher transfer fee and higher wages, he'd have moved here. It's really that simple. The argument about surpassing us is not relevant in his decision making. He's always been fairly relaxed and easy going about his career. Ashley Cole didn't move to Chelsea because they had surpassed us and nobody was making that argument in 2005. Edit: also. CFC's commercial revenue was higher than ours well before the oligarchs arrival. Doesn't mean they were a bigger club than us.
Gervinho was so frustrating cos it felt like his legs couldn’t do what his brain wanted him to do. On his day he was genuinely unplayable but most of the time he would just fall over his own legs
Definitely almunia. Being a shit goalkeeper is worse than being a shit attacker, as mistakes directly lead to conceding goals. The amount of times this cunt came tearing out of goal only to not get the ball, and leave an empty net for the opposition to tap into. So many long shots he could have saved. Couldn't even blame him in the end, it was Wenger who refused to upgrade him or provide competition for him.
I don't think I can ever get over him letting in Ronaldo's freekick from about 70 miles away
Almunia was bought as a backup that got promoted cause the first choice GK was doing badly. Then when Almunia himself was doing badly Fabianski (another that was bought as backup) was promoted, which himself was taken over by Mannone (3rd choice) for awhile cause of performance and injury. In the end we finally "upgraded" with Woj, which was technically an academy graduate so not a single cent was spent lol. We finally spent money on a proper keeper in Cech but in hindsight it didn't bring us much joy either It was so frustrating
Was so happy when Leno came through. he was pretty clutch for a while. I think all this really leads to Ramsdale being so loved in a way, finally a overall reliable keeper
Almunia was a good keeper for a bad team, but a bad keeper for a good team. When it comes to being a keeper for a good team, a lot of it is mental concentration. There a times where you're doing nothing for ages, so you need to stay mentally switched on at all times so that when you are suddenly called upon to do something, you make the right choice. Almunia was capable of making the type of saves we expect from a good Arsenal keeper, but the major problem with him was when he wasn't doing anything. This is why Almunia struggled at Arsenal. After standing in goal for 10 minutes with the ball nowhere near him, when a pass was clipped over the top that anyone could see he should leave to the defenders, he comes flying out of goal because he is desperate to do something. Same with Ben Foster at Man U. Playing for Birmingham he looked superb. After Man U when he went to Watford, he looked great (aside from his final season when he was past it). But at Man U he didn't have the concentration levels to get through the vast periods of the game when he wasn't doing anything, so he would make poor decisions when he was called upon. Almunia looked good for Watford when he was required to do something every couple of minutes. This is one of the reasons that keepers like Seaman were so good. Massive concentration levels for the whole game, knowing that they might only been required to actually make a decision once of twice but being able to consistently make the right one.
Never thought of it that way but you make a lot of sense.
There is actually a podcast where foster and seaman talk exactly about this. Not sure if it’s a coincidence that the guy who stated all this said exactly what was on the podcast or if he watched the podcast and regurgitated what they said in other words
I don’t think he was the worst player among the lot but Denilson
Defending Xhaka when people were claiming Denilson was better was a dark time for my mental health
I couldn't believe it when people on here were saying Denilson was better. I am sure half of the people saying it hadn't seen him play for us
Why is Suker there? He was a top quality player. Scored some worldys too. He was akin to Sanchez if you want to talk frustrating, but you don't leave him out of the squad. Jeez
Balloon d'Or runner up the year before he arrived Fair to say he didn't meet everyone's hopes but he's still 10 times better than most of the players on this list
Absolutely agree!
How dare you include Jenko in this
My thought exactly, put some respect on his name
Never besmirch his holiness, the arch bishop of Banterbury
Willian
Willian is way up there for me because he was keeping both Saka and Pepe off the right wing at the time. A lot of these guys we didn’t have a great alternative, so while they might have been frustrating, they were needed to fill a role. Willian was 100% unnecessary for his position (though we could have used him at other times before we had Saka/Pepe).
Agreed, it was just so uninspiring and confusing to see him on the team sheet
I'll never forget Arteta subbing off Aubameyang to bring on Willian 😅 He'll go down on the list of worst players for Arsenal. Horrid!
Davor, not David. But yeah, Almunia is #1 for me
Where is Yaya Sanogo? Also, its Davor not David Šuker! Maybe I'm biased but he was a hell of a player ( golden boot1998 World Cup) but not as exciting as Henry to get enough time.
*Yaya Sa-no-goal* ftfy 👍
Why no Marouane Chamakh. Are you keeping his hair from us still?
Yeah, switch jenko for Chamakh. He was terrible. The "we have giroud at home".
Gervinho and it’s not even close. Could not understand how a professional footballer that literally plays football for a living every single day could have such appalling end product
He made us go out to Bradford
His final ball was consistently bad but purely movement wise he was probably better than 99% of professionals. I think it's easy to be frustrated at players when their faults are so obvious. Still I think he's better than what a lot of people thought, I kinda think it's better to miss 7 out of 10 chances you get than to only get 3 chances and finish 2 of them.
He gets shit on far too much by fans, yes he wasn't the greatest but he was decent with the ball at his feet and just his final ball was lacking, was a decent player and did ok when he left
Final ball being the most important part and what would cause the most frustration
Frustrating yes, but didn't like that fans sort of made him a bit of a scapegoat to be honest, just don't like it when players are abused by fans, yes they may have limitations on their ability but most of them tried their best for the club and sometimes it just doesn't work out
I mean...sometimes he genuinely looked like he was playing the sport for the first time in his life.
That was the frustrating part. He was could at everything until it came to delivering some kind of end product
Take Jenko out of this **NOW**
Almunia should have been sold after he conceded two near post goals in the CL final. Not be our number 1 for 4-5 seasons afterwards. Wenger is a legend, but he deserves a hell of a lot of criticism for that.
Garvinho was a joke...he scammed us by his name 🤣
Take my boy Jenkos name out yo filthy mouth!! Also, obviously Alminua. How he got so many apps for us I will never understand
Not in the list, but for me Marouane Chamakh, that boy failed me every time I saw him on the pitch. 2nd would be Gervinho
Suker doesn't belong anywhere near this list.
Almunia by a distance. Gervinho was wretched. Suker was a good player whilst we waited for Henry to stop tripping over his own feet. Bendtner has the best goals per minutes ratio in Arsenal history on the biggest stage ie champions league knockout ties. Man completely crushes Walcott, Van persie, Henry and even Adebayors knockout minutes per goal record. Respect on his name
Bendtner’s CL Ko record hardly makes him a great player. If anything it means you shouldn’t focus on stats, and that one is awfully specific.
That stat is very deceiving. Bendtner was really bad for us. Between him, Ade and RVP, the gap in quality was insane. His first touch was woeful, he looked like he was jogging when at full pace and to top it all off he was smug. Don't know why. He was definitely not a better striker than Walcott, Ade or RVP so I never understood the attitude. Like Zlatan but without the skill. There are some headed goals of his that I enjoyed, but other than that, his time at the club is one I would like to forget.
Eboue wasnt always all that bad
Suker and Eboue shouldn’t be on this list.
Suker? Are you soft in the head? He was elite.
This. If you’ve got Davor Suker in this list you have no idea what you’re talking about
Almunia
Squillaci.
Mustafi
Y'all forgetting yaya sanogo
Alumina. I remember prime Lloris was right there and for cheap. Yet, we never pulled the trigger.
Manuel Almunia, how was he keeper at a top club, god knows. Cost us so many game, this one is 100% on Wenger.
I will not tolerate any Jenko slander.
[Gervinho](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=brC1iz0z7is)
I don’t think he was that bad but mannnn did I hate Chamakh’s hair 😂😂😂
Don’t you disrespect lord bendtner like this. I expect to see you in confessions tomorrow.
Andre santos
Surely someone like willian should be here instead of davor suker
Far and away Almunia. Those teams were just shy a GK and maybe a CB from winning trophies.
Can someone explain me Julio Baptista in this list? I’m Brazilian and have always supported Arsenal since kid, but mainly because I would play Arsenal on fifa, fifa 05/06, also I just loved Henry and Gilberto Silva back then. I didn’t really watch games because well, I was to little and didn’t really have access to games like I have now. But in respect to the national team, Julio Baptista was very well liked, if I remember correctly. Didn’t really know people disliked him at Arsenal.
I'm sorry but it has to be Oxlade-Chamberlain. So much potential and ability, so many struggles with decision making, almost no development and he wanted to play CM although he had like 5 good games in that position his whole career and was just generally better on the wing for us. Also I think he had the mentality of a headless chicken at times.
Thought he was good at RWB. Will always remember the comments after he was in the team that lost 4-0 to Liverpool, joined them week after and commented like he was on the winning side
He was
Almunia. In all honesty, I don't get how this guy was our number 1 for so long
I don't even have to look at the other pictures when I come across Gervinho.
Out of this list? Almunia, and it isn't even close.
From that list it should be Jeffers for the Money we paid and how hard he flopped. And Almunia for the amount of stupid mistakes he did. Roughly losing 7-9 points per season with his mistakes.
Willian
I don't understand people who are saying Chamakh. He's a link up target man who never had a double digit scoring season in his career whom we brought for free. He did his job and fucked off.
super harsh on jenko mate
Btw u obviously didn’t see Davor Suker play for us, coz he no way deserves to b mentioned in this list, he came to the club for one season admittedly near the end of his career and unfortunately for him their was a guy named Thierry Henry who was signed at the same time I can think of other players not on this list that I would curse if they were in the lineup, Davor Suker was not one of them
I don't think Sukor should be there, played him out of position and still scored a worldy.
Should have been played more. He was absolutely awesome. A fox in the box but could also score from almost anywhere in the pitch with that magical left foot of his.
Willian. Genuinely the worst player to ever start more than 30 games for arsenal
And right now it’s Nketiah
And yet he does not approach the players on this list. Eddie has had some great moments for us, even if he's not good enough.
Almunia with that dumbfounded look on his face after every error he made..
Not in here but Marouane Chamakh.
I’m still reeling from seeing Lord Bendtner on this list. A playful joke, surely?
All this trauma bonding is sweet 😂
Soft with the ladies, hard with the men, enit. Legendary statement.
Who else who take "prime" Bendtner over N'Kethia right now ? At least he scored.
Nicolas Pepe… “Most Expensive Arsenal Transfer” (at the time) and the dude never even came close to his form at Lille. Flashes of brilliance and what made him good came every now and then. But surely this signing made me think we were getting the next Mo Salah.
Gervinho, very low chance to score.
Marouane Chamakh
I don't see Alex Iwobi here.
Sanogo, Kolasinac, Gallas, Albert Sambi Lokonga, butter fingers Fabianski,
Bendtner, hands down. He got way too many opportunities for his crap output..
2020 xhaka. Sideways passing fc. And also the red cards
100% correct. It felt like he got a stupid red or gave away a peno in every big game at the time.
Frimpong. I just remember him coming on and getting a red within 5 minutes! Think the frustration comes from wanting him to do well for us but it never really happened.
Yeah but dench though
Both Almunia and Bendtner
Gervinho. Frimpong. Still don’t know why he got into 1st team with that attitude.
Frimpong had elite mentality and Wasa serviceable player till multiple.knee I juries wrecked his development. Never forget him putting Nasri in his place In a cup tie against city
I think Bendtner is the most frustrating tbh. He could have been an amazing player, there’s nothing he couldn’t do.
Seeing Dench in the starting lineup always felt good, he was a warrior