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Goalkeeper: Richard Wright – He signed a five-year contract and was signed as manager Arsène Wenger envisaged him as a long-term successor to David Seaman and also as a more experienced competitor for the previous second choice goalkeeper Alex Manninger (who soon left the club). He made his debut against Derby County on 29 September, but despite an injury to Seaman which gave him an extended run in the team, his season soon fell apart. He punched the ball into his own net in a 4–2 home defeat to Charlton Athletic and then limped off with injury in a UEFA Champions League match against Deportivo La Coruna. Wright later slipped to third-choice behind youth goalkeeper Stuart Taylor and only played FA Cup matches for the remainder of the season, although Seaman replaced him for the final, which Arsenal won 2–0 against Chelsea. He made his last Arsenal appearance on the final day of the 2001–02 season, a 4–3 victory over Everton. He was substituted in the 85th minute for Taylor, which gave both goalkeepers enough appearances to qualify for a Premier League winners’ medal that season. Wright made 22 appearances for Arsenal in total.
Right Back: Carl Jenkinson - Jenkinson signed for Arsenal from Charlton Athletic in June 2011, having spent much of 2010 on loan to non league clubs Eastbourne Borough and Welling, for an undisclosed fee thought to be around £1 million.
On 16 August 2011, Jenkinson made his Arsenal competitive debut in the final qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League against Udinese, coming on as a second half substitute, replacing the injured Johan Djourou early in the second half. Jenkinson made his Premier League debut against Liverpool on 20 August 2011, starting at right-back. He kept his place in the team, playing in the second leg against Udinese and then at Old Trafford against Manchester United in the Premier League, although he was sent off later in the game for a foul on Javier Hernández. He also assisted Robin van Persie to score Arsenal’s second in the game in a 8–2 loss against Manchester United. He was also torn to shreds by Shrewsbury Town in the Carling Cup 3rd round in 2011.
Centre Back: Gilles Grimandi - Grimandi began his professional career with AS Monaco in 1990 and made his first-team debut in 1991 against AS Nancy in the French top division. His career briefly interrupted by French military service, he went on to make 67 appearances and score 3 goals for the club, mostly as a centre back. He helped the club reach both a UEFA Champions League and a UEFA Cup semifinal and won the league title in 1996–97.
The following season, Grimandi left to join his former manager Arsène Wenger at Arsenal, making his debut in Elland Road against Leeds United, and helped achieve The Double in his first season. He made 113 league appearances as a midfielder, centre back, and right wingback, winning a second Double in his final season (2001–02) with the club. Was called the new Gus Caesar, the Arsenal defender immortalised in Fever Pitch as the worst defender in the club’s history at the beginning of his career, but improved later on once he played as a midfielder. But is for his defensive displays he is included in the Worst Arsenal XI.
Centre Back: Igors Stepanovs- Asides froms havings unnecessarsy S’s ats thes ends osf hiss namess,this is why he is included in this team, in 2000, legendary Arsenal captain Tony Adams was injured, prompting Arsène Wenger to sign Stepanovs for a transfer fee of £1.35m. Stepanovs started the season well, scoring a goal for Arsenal in a 2-1 League Cup defeat against Ipswich Town. His playing time grew until a match against Manchester United, when both sides were battling for the Premier League title. Arsenal lost this game 6-1 and their chances of winning the title were hit. After this disappointing performance, Stepanovs played only once again that season, and failed to make a single appearance during the next two seasons. Overall, he played just 17 times in 3 years.
Left back:Oleh Luzhny- *Technically a right back* but… Luzhny signed for English club Arsenal in the summer of 1999 after impressing manager Arsène Wenger in Kyiv’s clashes with Arsenal in the Champions League. He was signed as cover for Lee Dixon, although he was unable to fully displace the England international. While never a regular starter with the Gunners (the young Spanish-Cameroonian Lauren was signed a year later as Dixon’s long-term replacement), Luzhny still played 110 matches in four years at the club, either at right back or, less frequently, at centre back, and even captained the team once in the League Cup. In the 2001–02 season he won a double (the FA Premier League and the FA Cup) with Arsenal. His last match for the Gunners was the 2003 FA Cup Final (which Arsenal won, beating Southampton 1–0), one of Luzhny’s best performances for the club. Luzhny signed for newly-promoted Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer of 2003. He spent a single season there, but only made ten appearances for the side and was released by Wolves in the summer of 2004 following their relegation from the Premier League.
Wing: Eddie McGoldrick- McGoldrick moved to Arsenal after Crystal Palace’s relegation from the Premier League in 1993, linking up with Wright once again, and made his debut in the Charity Shield against Manchester United on 7 August 1993. However, his time there was less successful; after playing 38 games in the 1993-94 season, including a substitute appearance in Arsenal’s European Cup Winners’ Cup final win over Parma, he was less of a regular the following season, and in 1995-96 he played only one match. McGoldrick took Arsenal corner kicks with an unorthodox ‘looping’ style, by lofting the ball high into the air before it dropped in the penalty area. In all he played 57 times for Arsenal, scoring one goal.
Central Midfield: Ian Selley- Selley joined Arsenal in 1990 as a trainee and won a South East Counties League title medal and Floodlit Cup Winners medal in his first season. He made his first-team debut at the age of eighteen in a 1-0 defeat against Blackburn Rovers in September 1992. Selley played nine games for Arsenal in the 1992-93 season and fifteen games in the 1993-94 season. Injuries to several key players gave Selley his most famous appearance for the club, when he was the youngest player on the field in Arsenal’s 1994 European Cup Winners’ Cup Final victory over Parma. He had previously been a substitute in Arsenal’s 1993 League Cup final victory over Sheffield Wednesday, the first trophy in their Cup double that season. He scored two goals for Arsenal, both coming in the Cup Winners’ Cup. His first came against Standard Liege in 1993/94[1] and his second against Brondby the following season. In February 1995 Selley broke his leg playing against Leicester City, which forced him out for most of the 1996-97 season, playing just once under new manager Wenger as a late substitute against Chelsea. Despite reports that he would be a part of Arsène Wenger’s new side he was sold to Fulham in 1997 for £500,000, after playing 42 games for Arsenal. His career has slowly declined since and he now plays for Chertsey Town in the Southern League Division One Central.
Central Midfield: John Jensen- After scoring in Denmark’s 2–0 1992 European Championship final win over Germany, Jensen was signed by George Graham for Arsenal to succeed Leeds United bound David Rocastle in central midfield, after a bid to sign Geoff Thomas from Crystal Palace failed.
He was part of the 1992–93 side that won the FA Cup and League Cup in the same season, the 1993–94 side that won the European Cup Winners Cup (although he missed the final through injury) and the 1994–95 side that lost in the Cup-Winners Cup final. He was one of only 12 foreign players to play on the opening weekend of the FA Premier League.
He played 132 games for Arsenal, but he is chiefly remembered for the cult hero status he earned, somewhat akin to Perry Groves before him. No matter how hard Jensen tried (and, for a defensive midfielder, he tried exceptionally hard), he could not score a goal. The Arsenal fans came up with a song, “We’ll be there when Jensen scores!” and by 1994, Jensen’s search for a goal was such a cult cause that whenever he got the ball, no matter whether he was inside his own penalty area or bearing down on goal, the Arsenal fans would implore him to “Shooooot!”.
Jensen finally got his first goal after 98 matches, on a cold and wet afternoon against Queens Park Rangers on 31 December 1994. Arsenal were losing 1–0, when Jensen picked the ball up just inside the penalty area near the left-hand corner, about 16 yards from goal. The crowd gave the obligatory bellow of “shoot!”, and Jensen complied, curling a shot into the net, prompting wild celebration from the Arsenal fans. The fans sang Johnny Jensen, Johnny, Johnny Jensen for the rest of the evening. However, a defensive error and then a goalkeeping error from Vince Bartram resulted in Arsenal eventually losing the match 3–1. The goal is still remembered though and one can still see t-shirts around Highbury saying I saw John Jensen score. During the years he spent at Arsenal, John Jensen actually managed to score two goals in 21 games for the Danish national team: one against Albania in 1993 and one against Belgium in 1994.
A few months later, it was revealed that Jensen’s transfer to Highbury was at least partly motivated by George Graham’s involvement with agent Rune Hauge, who had been giving Graham backhanders in exchange for signing players he represented. The first player involved in this ‘bung’ scandal was Norwegian defender Pål Lydersen, and the second was Jensen. Graham was sacked from his job two months after the story broke, and he was subsequently banned from football for 12 months. Jensen played on for 18 months before he left Highbury in the summer of 1996, with only the solitary goal against QPR to his name from 138 competitive appearances for the club. He rejoined his old club, Brøndby IF.
Wing: Jimmy Carter- Jimmy Carter (born November 9, 1965 in Hammersmith, London) is an English former footballer. During his career, he played for Millwall, Liverpool, Arsenal, Oxford United, Portsmouth and then Millwall for a second spell.
Millwall bought Jimmy in 1987 for £15,000 from Queens Park Rangers, where he made his Football League debut in a 0-0 draw with Oldham at The Den. He quickly established himself in the Millwall first team and was an integral part of the team which gained Millwall promotion to the top flight in 1987-88, the first time ever in Millwall’s 100 year history.
Carter was part of a side that included players such as Teddy Sheringham, Tony Cascarino and Terry Hurlock. Millwall made a strong start to the 1988/89 season where they remained in the top four for much of the season before a poor finish saw them slip to tenth, their lowest position all season.
Jimmy’s reputation was growing and in 1991, Kenny Dalglish signed him for Liverpool for a fee of £800,000. Unfortunately Dalglish resigned shortly after and within a year Jimmy found himself returning to London where he signed for Arsenal, a club he supported as a young boy. Arsenal paid £500,000 for Carter.
He spent 3 and a half years at Highbury and during his time there, Arsenal won the FA Cup and the League Cup in 1993 and in 1994 went on to win the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. However he was very much a bit-part player making only 25 League appearances for the Gunners, and did not feature in any of the major finals Arsenal contested that time.
In the summer of 1995, with Graham having left the club for disciplinary reasons in the February and new manager Bruce Rioch rebuilding the team, Carter then signed for Portsmouth, where he spent three years. In 1998, Jimmy re-signed for Millwall, but did not have the same impact as his first spell there. He was forced to retire from football at the end of the 1998/99 season as a result of a serious back injury.
Carter has recently appeared for Arsenal in the Masters Cup Football competition for veteran players shown live on Sky Sports.
Forward: Francis Jeffers- Born in Liverpool, Merseyside, Jeffers began his career at Everton, making his debut as a half-time substitute (for Dave Watson) on Boxing Day 1997 at Old Trafford at the age of 16 years 335 days. Showing a lot of early promise and talent, he scored 20 goals in 60 matches for the Toffees. However, after a much publicised row with manager Walter Smith over a pay rise, he was dropped from the team for half a season and subsequently rarely performed as well.
His performances had caught the eye of Arsène Wenger and he signed for Arsenal in 2001 for £8million – making him one of the club’s most expensive signings yet.
However, Jeffers did not live up to the “fox in the box” tag, and his time at Arsenal was dogged by injury. He was forced out of the side by the form of fellow strikers like Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord. Arsenal won three trophies during Jeffers’ spell at the club. However, Jeffers did not pick up any medals. Arsenal won the FA Cup in 2002 and 2003 but Jeffers was left out of both match day squads. This was despite him contributing to their 2003 triumph by scoring three goals en route to the final, two against Farnborough and one against Chelsea. He also started the semi-final against Sheffield United. Arsenal also won the 2001-02 Premier League title, but Jeffers only played 6 league games that season, meaning he was not eligible for a medal. His final appearance for Arsenal came in the 2003 FA Community Shield, coming on as a substitute but then getting sent off.[8] Days later he would rejoin Everton on loan. Francis Jeffers recently came 5th in a poll of favoured Arsenal players by Matthew Spencer of Global-travellers And Pension Guru’s Arsenal Supporters Club (GAPGAS Club). Jeffers has played once, and scored once, for England.
Forward: Nicklas Bendtner- No. Just no.
Also nominated were: Alberto Mendez and Sebastien Squillaci.
Thanks @rockthecasbah77 @robbietk94 @Benmania1 @AFC_Fanbase for the replies on Twitter!
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go on Wikipedia to find out more. (I have inlcuded a handy link for this as the name is right old faff to type)
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