Sometimes when you sign a player, it isn’t quite what you hoped for and the same is the case for a promising youngster who never quite reaches their full potential. For Arsenal it’s no different and they’ve had their far share of lost causes.
Whilst fans this season will condemn poor performances and declare that Mathieu Flamini is the worst player to ever play for the club, on the grand scheme of things he’s not as bad as many argue and, come the end of this article, Flamini may end up looking like Lionel Messi.
This is it, the worst Arsenal team that could ever be assembled into one lacklustre side. If the Gunners did play all of these players at once, there might just have been a side in the Premier League worst than Aston Villa.
Hit the image below to see the WORST Arsenal XI of all-time!
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GK: Manuel Almunia
Although arguably not the worst goalkeeper that Arsenal have ever had, especially with the vast competition there is for that honour, Manuel Almunia makes the cut because, for reasons unknown, he remained the Gunners first-choice goalkeeper for three years.
Almunia’s breakthrough came after Jens Lehmann’s poor start to the 2007/08 season and the Spaniard earned his chance. Impressing early on, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t up to standard but it wasn’t until 2010, when a certain Wojciech Szczesny came along, that he was finally ousted from the starting line-up.
RB: Oleg Luzhny
Signed in 1999 as cover for Lee Dixon, and with the eventual aim of becoming Arsenal’s first-choice right-back, the Ukrainian never quite showed the best of his ability- despite having 110 appearances for the Gunners over a four-year period.
He left with his tail tucked between his legs, failing to achieve what was expected from him, and his hope of becoming an Arsenal regular was shattered when the Gunners signed Lauren, who’d go onto become an iconic figure in north London.
Still, he won the double with Arsenal in the 2001/02 season and his final match was the 2003 FA Cup final against Southampton, where the Gunners won 1-0.
CB: Pascal Cygan
Mockingly dubbed Zinedine Cygan due to his lack of ability, Pascal Cygan is immortalised as one of the members of Arsenal’s ‘Invincible’ team of 2003/04 as he made 18 appearances in the season where Arsenal didn’t lose a single league game.
Despite appearing more times in that campaign than Kanu, Jose Antonio Reyes and Syvlain Wiltord, he didn’t go down as a success. When signed by Arsene Wenger in 2002, he was tipped as a future French international but he failed to earn a single cap for Les Bleus.
On the Arsenal stage, his lack of pace and poor positioning saw him lampooned by the Gunners faithful until he was eventually sold to Villarreal in 2005.
CB: Sebastian Squillaci
A prime member of what Arsenal fans dub the ‘banter years’, Sebastian Squillaci will go down as one of, if not the, worst signing of Arsene Wenger’s long tenure at Arsenal. Simply put, the French defender was a bizarre signing and he was genuinely awful.
In the number 18 shirt, previously held by more defensive failures in Mikael Silvestre and the aforementioned Pascal Cygan, Arsenal fans had high expectations after Wenger splashed £4m on his services. Three years later, he wasn’t worth 50p.
His first season, 2010/11 saw him as an Arsenal regular but it was ultimately his poor performances that led to the Gunners signing Per Mertesacker. From there, Arsenal fans thankfully didn’t see as much of the hapless Frenchman.
LB: Andre Santos
Signed in a flurry of transfer activity in 2011 along with Per Mertesacker and Mikel Arteta, who would go one to wear the armband for Arsenal, Andre Santos’ career in north London couldn’t have gone any more differently.
Fairly competent going forward, Santos’ problem was his sheer inability to defend. To make it worse, after a poor first-half in a match against Manchester United he decided to swap shirts with Robin Van Persie at half-time!
RM: Jermaine Pennant
Arsenal made a transfer record in 1999 as they splashed £2m on 15-year-old Jermaine Pennant and he was tipped as a future star. Amidst a wealth of expectations, Pennant failed to show at any point that he was worth the investment.
During seven years at Arsenal, Pennant started just five matches- which shows just how poor he was. When handed limited opportunities, he failed to impress and was eventually sold to Blackburn Rovers for £3m.
CM: Alberto Mendez
A name that will be unheard of for many of you, Alberto Mendez was the first of many Arsene Wenger signings that raised eyebrows. The French many, for some reason, saw potential in the unheard of prodigy and brought him to Highbury in 1997.
At the time of his signing, he was a 22-year-old business administration student playing in the FIFTH tier of German football. He cost a quarter-of-a-million and his start was respectable before his career curtailed vastly.
He left five years later having made only 11 appearances, just four of which came in the league.
CM: Denilson
Frustratingly for Arsenal fans, Arsene Wenger is a very patient man and he put a lot of time into a Brazilian youngster called Denilson. However, Arsenal really didn’t get much to show from it and the South American was a regularly poor performer.
Arsenal paid £3.4m for the unknown prodigy in 2006 and, somehow, he managed to stay on the Gunners’ books for NINE years. His final two-years were spent at Sao Paulo, who he later joined permanently, but he still managed to knock-up 96 Premier League appearances.
After the emergence of a certain Jack Wilshere, Denilson shrunk into obscurity and was finally offloaded.
LM: Amaury Bischoff
After years of injury problems with German side Werder Bremen, it was a major shock when free-agent Amaury Bischoff joined Arsenal in 2008. Arsene Wenger openly admitted it was a gamble and, ultimately, it was another one that didn’t pay off.
He left just a year later having made only four first-team appearances, just one of which was in the Premier League, and his career has been a whole lot of nothing since. What on earth was Wenger thinking?
ST: Francis Jeffers
Once tipped as the next big thing in English football, Arsenal splashed a massive £8m to sign Francis Jeffers, then 20, from Premier League rivals Everton. At the time, it was one of the highest fees Arsenal had ever paid for a player.
Arsenal fans thought they were getting an exciting prospect who could go onto become a superstar but instead they had a striker who struggled to hit a barn door. His three-years at Arsenal were plagued by injury and he didn’t break into the squad properly, facing competition with Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord.
In 2004, he was sold to Charlton Athletic and, after his breakthrough at Everton where he scored 18 league goals, he never managed more than five for a single club.
Jeremie Aliadiere
From one exciting young forward who failed to produce to another, Jermie Aliadiere can be described as the French version of his striking team-mate in this side. Signed at the age of 16, he made his debut a year later replacing Thierry Henry- but a star wasn’t born.
There were highlights, which included winning the Premier League in 2003/04 and setting up Robert Pires goal in a 5-1 drubbing of Inter Milan at the San Siro, but he was never anything more than a bit-part player.
From 2005 to 2007 he spent time on-loan, before joining Middlesbrough.
