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Ranked! Arsenal's 10 worst signings of the Premier League era
10. John Jensen
If Arsenal fans needed evidence of where the club was headed as the Premier League era dawned in the summer of 1992, it came with the signing of the curly-haired defensive midfielder who’d just won the European Championship with Denmark. His thunderous goal in the final against Germany was hardly a portent of things to come at Highbury.
A solitary strike – a magnificent curled effort against QPR on New Year’s Eve 1994 – spawned a T-shirt with the slogan: ‘I was there when Jensen scored’. His unspectacular (although solid) displays contrasted poorly with those of fans’ favourite and Highbury cult hero David Rocastle, who departed to Leeds shortly before Jensen arrived at Highbury. Perhaps JJ was doomed to fail from the start.
9. Jose Antonio Reyes
After joining Arsenal for a whopping £10.5m from Sevilla in January 2004, the 20-year-old Spaniard made an instant impact at Highbury, dispatching two crackers against Chelsea as Arsenal defeated their newly moneyed rivals in a February FA Cup clash.
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Yet in October 2004, on the day that the Gunners lost their 49-match unbeaten record, Manchester United (and Gary Neville in particular) physically destroyed him. From that point onwards, Reyes wilted in the red and white, and in February 2005 was caught in a radio sting admitting that he longed to move back to Spain. In 2006 he got his way, joining Real Madrid on loan with his early promise at Highbury unfulfilled.
8. Gervinho
Despite promises of big-name signings in the 2011 close season, Arsenal fans were underwhelmed with the arrival of the £10.5m Lille forward. After early encouragement, the Ivory Coast forward dawdled far too often when he broke into the opposition box, his shooting was often wayward, and he frequently lost possession.
Following a bright start to the 2012/13 campaign, Gervinho quickly found himself at the rough end of the Emirates crowd’s frustration. He drifted out of the first-team picture, then departed to Roma after a lacklustre two-year spell in north London.
7. Park Chu-young
If the summer 2011 transfer window hadn't already been depressing enough for Arsenal fans – Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri became the latest three first-teamers to jump ship – then their team's late-window arrivals were enough to tip Gunners over the edge. And while Per Mertesacker and Mikel Arteta were both reasonable additions, Andre Santos and South Korean striker Park Chu-young were anything but.
Park, in particular, was a head-scratcher. He was 26 and hardly bragged a prolific record with Monaco in Ligue 1, plus he wasn't even a national team regular. Sure enough, such an underwhelming reputation was backed up at the Emirates: seven appearances in all, only one Premier League appearance – against Manchester United – and one goal in the League Cup against Bolton to show for it. With such low expectations, you couldn't even call him a disappointment.
6. Marouane Chamakh
In his early months during the 2010/11 season at Arsenal, the Moroccan free signing from Bordeaux looked a decent striker, plundering goals with regularity in both the Premier League and Champions League. Yet by the end of the calendar year, Chamakh admitted he’d “completely lost my edge”. Despite his snood, he began to labour dreadfully, and appeared only sporadically for the Gunners – mainly as a substitute.
Chamakh played a memorable cameo role in October 2012, netting a brace as a substitute in Arsenal’s incredible 7-5 League Cup victory against Reading. Yet the striker was held up by unforgiving Arsenal supporters as evidence of how the club was trying – and failing – to win things on the cheap.
5. Kim Kallstrom
In mitigation, the Swedish midfielder was once a fine footballer, winning 131 caps with Sweden and having garnered multiple honours with Lyon. Yet his brief loan spell with Arsenal in the early months of 2014 was a farce from the very start. After sustaining a back injury with parent club Spartak Moscow and failing his medical, it was decided that Kallstrom would complete his rehabilitation at Arsenal.
This shortened his Gunners career to just four appearances, although he did coolly dispatch a spot-kick in the FA Cup semi-final penalty shootout against Wigan. He later described his cameo role as: “the best 15 minutes of my life.”
4. Francis Jeffers
There was much excitement in N5 when Arsenal signed the free-scoring Evertonian in the 2001 close season, with Arsene Wenger quickly labelling him the “fox in the box” that the club needed. Sadly for all concerned, injuries, question marks over his attitude in training, competition from the likes of Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord, plus a dramatic loss of confidence meant that Jeffers was merely a bit-part player as Arsenal won the Double in 2002 and FA Cup in 2003.
There were occasional glimpses of magic on FA Cup runs (including a brace against Farnborough in early 2003), but after being red carded in the 2003 Community Shield clash with Manchester United, he was loaned back to former club Everton.
3. Kaba Diawara
Given that he cost a relative pittance (£2.5m), it seems harsh to include the Frenchman on this list. But with Arsene Wenger hyping the 24-year-old as being every inch as exciting as Nicolas Anelka when he arrived at Highbury in January 1999, Diawara’s subsequent failure to find the net during his brief Arsenal stay was particularly galling.
Particularly so as Manchester United edged past Wenger’s men both in the Premier League and the FA Cup on their way to the Treble. Diawara hit the woodwork several times during those months, most notably in the crucial end-of-season game against Leeds United which Arsenal lost 1-0. Had he converted his chances at Elland Road, Arsenal would have retained the title. He didn’t. They didn't.
2. Sebastien Squillaci
Squillaci threatened to go on strike at Sevilla if he failed to secure a transfer to Arsenal, but Gunners were left wishing he hadn't got his way. The French central defender never looked comfortable at the Emirates, partly due to the fact that both he and fellow new boy Laurent Koscielny were adapting to the pace of English football, but also because the former just wasn’t very good.
The nadir arrived in early 2012 when, during a league game against Fulham, his 92nd-minute clearing header fell to Bobby Zamora, who volleyed home to give the Cottagers all three points. A few weeks later, as Arsenal crashed out of the FA Cup to Sunderland, substitute Squillaci was benched after deflecting Kieran Richardson’s 40th-minute effort into his own net. After three seasons in north London he was eventually farmed out to French outfit Bastia.
In a nutshell...
1. Glenn Helder
Outgoing Arsenal manager George Graham shelled out a (then) hefty £2.3m on the Vitesse Arnhem winger in February 1995. It was a bizarre decision by a manager whose sacking was announced on the day that Helder made his debut against Nottingham Forest, and by the board who sanctioned the move while knowing that Graham was effectively already a goner.
Helder possessed a blistering turn of pace, but his crossing was frequently woeful and one goal was a dismal return for his Gunners career (netted against Middlesbrough a year after he joined). After 18 months of general ineptitude and dressing room boasting about his inflated salary, the Dutchman with the Lionel Richie hairdo was loaned to Benfica.
Oddly, for a player who was anything but an Arsenal legend, he popped up in an Arsenal Legends XI in countryman Dennis Bergkamp’s 2006 testimonial. Always was a nice guy, Dennis.
