{"id":7986,"date":"2023-06-24T09:43:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T08:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7986"},"modified":"2023-07-01T18:16:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T17:16:55","slug":"transfers-that-have-rocked-the-arsenal-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7986","title":{"rendered":"Transfers That Have Rocked the Arsenal Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>The most important transfers in the last 60 years at Arsenal&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1155793212\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:87.71044% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1155793212?et=na_QieQPSIVMrIvyZMjcgQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=CITm1lJjR5iAqR6WSrKjRjOT9VK95UltEebNQHxg968=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\" width=\"594\" height=\"521\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The close season is a time for reflection, nostalgia and expectation. While the transfer market appears to be hotting up and Arsenal are linked with a host of players, I thought I would take a personal view of the transfer deals that have occurred during my time in supporting the Club.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me preface my suggestions with a bit of context. To make the choices I have looked at three things, although I have not assigned specific values. It is the close season after all and rather hot to work that hard! The three elements are: drama and excitement (effectively the impact a transfer has); the quality of performance of a player over time; and, to what extent they represented value for money. So, here are my thoughts in ascending order of the ten most significant transfers at Arsenal over the last sixty years. Please remember\u2026 it\u2019s very subjective and just to prove how subjective it is I qualify this piece at the end by suggesting that I might have completely missed one of the most significant deals!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>10. Malcolm Macdonald&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SuperMac joined us in 1976 for a fee of \u00a3333,333 from Newcastle where he was idolised. The mid-seventies had been a very depressing time at Arsenal but we had started to develop a core of home-produced players like Brady, Stapleton and O\u2019Leary who lifted the quality of the squad and Macdonald was a statement signing that we were on the way back. To an extent that was right and he did a good job. Supermac had two seasons with us before his knee injuries forced him to retire. He scored 42 goals in 84 appearances and towards the end of his time with us he was seriously incapacitated.&nbsp;&nbsp;He didn\u2019t get on with Terry Neill and he and Alan Hudson (another very exciting signing) were sent home from a close season tour to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He was a big personality who brought glamour and star quality to the club but he didn\u2019t achieve enough with us to figure any higher on this list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9. Joe&nbsp;&nbsp;Baker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dave Faber (\u2018Holic) and I shared many things especially concerning Arsenal and one of them was that we loved Joe Baker. Joe was an Englishman brought up in Scotland who came to Arsenal after an ill-fated spell at Torino where he was badly hurt in a serious car-crash. He cost \u00a370,000 in the summer of 1963 and was a regular scorer topping our goal-scoring charts for four seasons and forcing his way back into the England team. His fallout with Billy Wright when he and George Eastham were transfer-listed in 1966 was cataclysmic to a young schoolboy who idolised the dapper and exciting Joe. He went on to star briefly at Nottingham Forest. He and Eastham (who nearly made the list) deserved a better team and a better manager but they brought many great moments to a free-scoring team who were sadly unable to challenge for honours.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>8.Robert Pires&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wrestled with this one. Pires was not a mega-transfer. He didn\u2019t attract huge attention when he signed. But what a player! Probably the finest wide player I\u2019ve seen in an Arsenal shirt. He signed from Marseille in 2000, struggled in his first season and then became increasingly influential. It was so sad to see him subbed off in Paris in the Champions League Final &#8211; his last moment in an Arsenal shirt. We were so lucky to have him during the peak years of his career . He is still strongly involved with Arsenal as a club ambassador.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7. Patrick Vieira<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1996 I remember reading at an airport about this new Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, just after his appointment was confirmed.&nbsp;&nbsp;David Dein was explaining how good he was going to be and that he had asked us to sign two players to precede his arrival. They were Remi Garde and Patrick Vieira who joined us from AC Milan for something like \u00a33.5 million. It was an extraordinary deal. He was an amazing player, a huge influence in midfield and a great captain. Wenger\u2019s prescience paid off massively. Vieira is one of the legends of our club and I feel privileged to have seen him play. What a transfer!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6. Charlie Nicholas&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the most subjective pick of the lot. After rising in the late seventies we let fine players like Brady and Stapleton slip away and signed absolute dross like Hawley and Chapman to play upfront. Charlie Nicholas was the sensation of British football in 1983 and chose us over Manchester United because he didn\u2019t like Ron Atkinson and over Liverpool because he wasn\u2019t sure he could get in their team! He was probably right &#8211; but I loved Charlie. I loved his habit of scoring against Spurs, the clear pride he had in playing for Arsenal and of course, he had that one afternoon at Wembley in 1987 when we beat Liverpool to win the Littlewoods Cup. He still exudes great love for our club and most supporters regard him as one of the most colourful players ever to represent us.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;5. Alan Ball<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is Christmas 1972, long before the concept of a \u2018transfer window\u2019. We are Double champions but lacking a little sparkle in the following season. Just before the festive season began Bertie Mee decided to buy Alan Ball, World Cup winner, genuine superstar and to try to revamp our midfield. I remember my father who worked in newspapers bringing home copies of all the dailies and the Sun predicted the Ball transfer. A few hours later it was a done deal (remember those days?). It was a new British record fee of \u00a3220,000!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ball\u2019s style and his personality did not gell with all his colleagues as I have been told by some of them. Leaving his payslip in the dressing room in his first week didn\u2019t endear him to men who\u2019d just won the Double!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he was a fine player who was forced to carry a poor team as Mee\u2019s attempt at restructure went disastrously wrong. He stayed until Alan Hudson arrived in 1977 by which time Brady was already starring for the team. Ball left for Southampton later that season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Thierry Henry&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are now at the stage where the players we are assessing are so important in the history of our club that agreement on their relative significance is effectively impossible. I was largely unmoved by the Henry transfer at the time because seeing him play for France I didn\u2019t think he could finish and I thought he would be a poor man\u2019s Anelka. I was actually more excited by the simultaneous signing of Davor Suker from Real Madrid! How wrong I was! Henry was transformed by Wenger\u2019s coaching, the support of a brilliant team and the love of an adoring Arsenal public. He gave us wonderful service, breaking our goalscoring record and remains an absolute legend at our club. He was quite extraordinary value, an \u2018Invincible\u2019 and we made a profit on him when he went to Barcelona. Arsenal is his club in a way that Barcelona never will be and who can forget his return for the FA Cup tie with Leeds when he scored that trademark goal. That really was box office! But so was Thierry!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Ian Wright&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was in the Isle of Man on a business trip (not a place I love) when I heard on a radio bulletin we\u2019d signed Wrighty. I was very surprised because we were champions, heavy scorers and I didn\u2019t think George Graham would spend that amount of money on another striker when we had Smith and Campbell. I\u2019m so glad he did.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wrighty gave us personality when we lacked quality in many positions and when, after losing in the European Cup to Benfica, Graham decided that we needed to become more solid &#8211; a synonym in this case for unexciting; cue the era of Selley, Jensen, Hillier, McGoldrick and Jimmy Carter. Wrighty carried the team in this era and we became a successful Cup side.&nbsp;&nbsp;Many of his goals were outrageous and he stayed long enough to be part of our 1998 Double side. He was another who loved playing for Arsenal. He is synonymous with the club and has matured enormously as a pundit and a strong supporter of women\u2019s football. If only he could turn off the tears!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. Sol Campbell&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many ways this was possibly THE most exciting capture although it was technically a free transfer. I have to say that a couple of weeks before he signed, I had been at a conference in the South of France with a financier who had confidently predicted that Sol would sign for us. It wasn\u2019t the great secret some suggest. But it was a massive affirmation of the difference in status between the two North London clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sol went on to win the Double in his first season, to become an \u2018Invincible\u2019 and to score in the Champions League Final. He left in odd circumstances but subsequently returned to play for the club again. He was another real statement signing. The statement was \u2018Arsenal are a much bigger club than Spurs!\u2019&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Dennis Bergkamp&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had been at Harvard Business School for almost a week, working very hard and hearing nothing about football. One morning I picked up USA Today which spelt out the details of Bergkamp\u2019s \u00a37.5 million deal. \u2018Inter Milan sell Dennis Bergkamp to Arsenal London\u2019. I really wondered about the veracity of this story from such an unlikely source. There was no internet to check details and no mobile phone so I dialled my Dad from my&nbsp;&nbsp;room to confirm the news. Money well spent, just as the fee for Dennis was. Bruce Rioch got the ostensible credit for the deal but it was done by David Dein with advice from a bloke called Arsene Wenger in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bergkamp\u2019s arrival was a real game changer. Over ten glorious years we had the privilege of seeing a master at work, a man whose presence lifted and inspired his teammates and who terrified the opposition. I believe Dennis Bergkamp is our most important inwards transfer ever because of the impact he had on our standards and our belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>As I said earlier, this is a subjective list and as I was compiling it I realised something important which I have alluded to in the article. Most, nearly all of these great figures are great ambassadors for the club. Men who regard Arsenal as the club of their life &#8211; that\u2019s interesting isn\u2019t it? Wright, Henry, Vieira, Pires, Nicholas love the club with a passion.&nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe their love for the club fired their performances?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I missed one &#8211; a big transfer in October 1964 which saw Frank Mclintock join from Leicester for \u00a380,000. Transfers could happen at any time up to the transfer deadline in March and Mclintock\u2019s arrival was unheralded. He went straight into a rather flakey team who lost the next night 3-0 at home to Nottingham Forest! An inauspicious beginning but he became another huge figure in the history of our club even though his initial transfer didn\u2019t perhaps have the drama of other deals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please let me know which deals you think were the most significant and exciting\u2026. and, in a few years, might we be recalling the famous day Kai Havertz joined us and became a player who changed the potential of our club?&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most important transfers in the last 60 years at Arsenal&nbsp; Embed from Getty Images The close season is a time for reflection, nostalgia and expectation. While the transfer market appears to be hotting up and Arsenal are linked with a host of players, I thought I would take a personal view of the transfer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8008,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7986\/revisions\/8008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}