For the first time in a long time at Emirates Stadium, there isn’t so much deadwood knocking around with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal squad looking incredibly competitive.
So far this summer, the likes of Wojciech Szczsesny, Yaya Sanogo, Lukas Podolski and Abou Diaby have left the club either permanently or on loan and what’s left is a playing roster that looks title challenging worthy.
Much has been said about Arsenal negotiating their period of austerity whereby they had to pay the Emirates Stadium debt off and in that time, Gooners saw their fair share of woeful additions that were brought in to simply try and keep the club ticking over despite their underwhelming arrivals.
The likes of Marouane Chamakh and Gervinho certainly fall into this category but in fairness to Wenger, he continued to consistently ensure Arsenal qualified for the Champions League.
With Arsenal now out of this period and having splashed the cash to land two successive marquee signings in Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, Wenger has added Petr Cech this time around and with the capture of a top class forward, the Gunners could be the real deal this season.
But with Arsenal fans having to wait a day more than most to kick off their Premier League campaign against West Ham United on Sunday, we’re using the time in between to devise a list of five of the worst Arsenal players of all-time.
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Click on the image below to reveal what we believe to be the 5 worst Arsenal players of all-time.
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Andre Santos
In many ways, Andre Santos was everything that Arsene Wenger doesn’t typically go for in a footballer.
Overweight, unpredictable and a panic signing, the former Brazilian international infamously burned his bridges with Arsenal fans after trading his shirt with Gunners public enemy number one Robin van Persie at half-time during a fixture at Old Trafford.
This was the final straw not only for Arsenal fans but for Wenger too with the French boss dropping Santos out of the action for the period thereafter.
In truth, Arsenal fans didn’t miss Santos who all too often looked immobile, lazy and simply not good enough.
In many ways, it’s remarkable to think he’s won 24 caps for Brazil at international level but then again, the Selecao have never been as good defending as they have attacking!
Park Chu-Young
A panic signing in the summer transfer window of 2011, Park Chu-Young arrived at Emirates Stadium in strange circumstances after cutting short a medical with Lille upon hearing about Arsenal’s interest.
In fairness to the South Korean international, we’d also jump at the chance of joining the Gunners if we were in his situation and the striker must’ve thought Arsenal’s interest was a joke.
Sadly for Gooners everywhere, their interest wasn’t a joke and Park signed on while taking the number nine shirt in North London.
Going on to play just once for Arsenal in the Premier League, it appears Wenger wised up to just what he’d done as well from an early stage.
Number nines haven’t really settled well for Arsenal in the years gone by; you only need to look at the likes of Jose Antonio Reyes, Francis Jeffers and Lukas Podolski and unfortunately for Park, he joined this category too.
With the number nine shirt vacant this summer, Arsenal fans are hoping it’ll be filled by Karim Benzema by September 1st.
Sebastien Squillaci
When Sebastien Squillaci arrived at Arsenal, he came with a fairly decent pedigree having performed in Europe for the likes of Monaco, Lyon and Sevilla but sadly for the Frenchman, his time at Arsenal won’t be looked back upon with any fondness at all.
While Mikael Silvestre was bad, he managed to score against arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur but as for Squillaci, all Gunners fans became accustomed to was a player who always looked a yard off the pace while showcasing his fair share of errors to boot.
Chalking up just 24 appearances in the Premier League before being sent to Corsican side Bastia with his tail between his legs in 2013, Squillaci did manage to grab one goal – against Stoke City in February 2011.
Following the arrival of Per Mertesacker in North London, Squillaci fell out of Arsene Wenger’s plans and for many, it was good riddance.
Junichi Inamoto
Before the likes of Andre Santos, Park Chu-Young and Sebastien Squillaci came Junichi Inamoto, a player who initially tried to go about proving Arsene Wenger wrong following his release after scoring two goals for Japan at the 2002 World Cup.
However in truth, Wenger never ended up truly regretting his decision to let Inamoto go at the start of the summer of 2002 after the player approximately made zero Premier League appearances for the Gunners.
Having worked in Japan with Nagoya Grampus Eight of course, Wenger boasted a finite knowledge of the Asian game and swooped to bring Inamoto to the club on loan in the hope of players of that origin finally making a breakthrough in Europe.
With Arsenal winning the domestic double in the 2001/2 season in which Inamoto was around, the fact the club had the likes of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira in the ranks only served to highlight how out of his depth Inamoto was as an inferior player.
Francis Jeffers
The infamous ‘fox in the box’ will forever go down as one of Arsenal’s most embarrassing signings.
Before Wayne Rooney came Francis Jeffers, a Liverpudlian and product of the Everton academy who had scored 18 goals in 49 Premier League appearances for the Toffees prior to his big Arsenal switch.
Signed for £8 million in 2001 becoming one of the club’s most expensive purchases of all-time (crazy to think isn’t it!), Jeffers turned out to be a disaster of a signing, no matter which way you paint the picture.
For a long while before Arsenal’s wave of English talent, we had thought that Jeffers’ ill-fated spell in North London had put Wenger off signing English players.
Playing just 22 times for Arsenal in the Premier League while scoring just four goals in that time, Jeffers wasn’t good enough, most recently playing for Accrington Stanley of League Two in 2013 ahead of retirement.
