Arsene Wenger’s transfer history is often lauded, Vieira, Henry, Fabregas, Pires, Toure. The list of great, and often cheap, signings is endless isn’t it? Well maybe the record of Arsene Wenger is not quite as astounding as we are led to believe. I have made a deliberate mistake (one which has helped create the Wenger transfer record myth) in the very open line of this article, can anyone spot it? *Answer at the end of the article.
Of course Wenger has made some great signings, and has made a very healthy profit on a fair few players in his time, but with his reputation as a transfer visionary, we can expect a success rate of what 75%? 50%? I have judged every permanent signing that Arsene Wenger has made with Arsenal, and voted an unequivocal success or failure on each signing where I feel it is possible to do so.
Where the picture is not yet clear, such as a current player who has been at the club for a time too short to judge, or a player who is simply too young to be judged, I have made clear also. I expect most will disagree with my decision on player or another, but overall, given the number of players involved, I think it gives a fair view of Wenger’s transfer record at Arsenal. Some of you may find the following are a little out of step with what the media, and many forgetful Arsenal fans, have led you to believe.
Arsene Wenger – Joined Arsenal 30/09/1996
1996-1997
Nicolas Anelka – Success; Matthew Upson – Failure (has had a good career, but not with Arsenal); Alex Manninger – Success (was a good back-up keeper); Manu Petit – Success; Gilles Grimandi – Success (not a great, but a reasonable back up in his time); Luis Boa Morte – Failure (same as Upson); Alberto Mendez – Failure; Marc Overmars – Success; Lee Canoville – Failure
Overall Stats – 9 players signed: 5 Successes 55% - 4 Failures 45%
1997-1998
Christopher Wreh – Failure; David Grondin – Failure
Overall Stats – 11 players signed: 5 Successes 45% - 6 Failures 55%
1998-1999
Freddie Ljungberg – Success; Eric Chukwunyelu Obinna – Failure; William Huck – Failure; Jermaine Pennant – Failure; Nwankwo Kanu – Success; Kaba Diawara – Failure; Oleg Luzhny – Success
Overall Stats – 18 players signed: 8 Successes 44% - 10 Failures 56%
1999-2000
Stefan Malz – Failure; Silvinho – Success; Davor Suker – Failure (great player, but not for Arsenal); Thierry Henry – Success; Niccolo Galli – Failure; Lauren – Success
Overall Stats – 24 players signed: 11 Successes 46% - 13 Failures 54%
2000-2001
Robert Pires – Success; Sebastian Svard – Failure; Moritz Volz – Failure (good career at Fulham, shame about Arsenal); Guy Demel – Failure; Sylvain Wiltord – Success (not worth the £13m they paid at the time, but a good player); Igor Stepanovs – Failure; Tomas Danilevicius – Failure; Edu – Success (didn’t always convince, but did a steady job); Juan – Failure; Francis Jeffers – Failure (Yes, he really did pay 8m quid for him)
Overall Stats – 34 players signed: 14 Successes 41% - 20 Failures 59%
2001-2002
Gio Van Bronckhorst – Success; Sol Campbell – Success; Richard Wright – Failure (£6m he cost, career has gone spectacularly backwards since); Efstathios Tavlaridis – Failure; Kolo Toure – Success
Overall Stats – 39 players signed: 17 Successes 43.6% – 22 Failures 56.4%
2002-2003
Pascal Cygan – Failure; Gilberto Silva – Success; Rami Shaaban – Failure; Guillaume Warmuz – Failure
Overall Stats – 43 players signed: 18 Successes 42% – 25 Failures 58%
2003-2004
Cesc Fabregas – Success; Phillipe Senderos – Failure (Difficult one to judge, has done some good things and some bad things, but at 2.5m when just 18, has to be considered a disappointment); Jens Lehmann – Success (Strained relations now, and the bloke is mental, but no doubting his quality on his day); Gael Clichy – Success; Jose Reyes – Failure (Quality player at times but didn’t settle, and his career has gone nowhere since as well); Robin Van Persie – Success; Arturo Lupoli – Failure (had ability, but not given a regular chance and moved on)
Overall Stats – 50 players signed: 22 Successes 44% – 28 Failures 56%
2004-2005
Manuel Almunia – Success; Mathieu Flamini – Success; Emmanuel Eboue – Success (Picked up for just £1m, so a good deal, his perseverance with the Ivorian on the right side of midfield must frustrate Gooners though)
Overall stats – 53 players signed: 25 Successes 47% – 28 Failures 53%
2005-2006
Nicklas Bendtner – Success (A little early to judge, but picked up for a small fee and looks to have enough promise); Vito Mannone – Too early to judge the young keeper, at 20 though it looks like his days might be numbered; Armand Traore – Again, early to judge, but looks class at such a young age; Aleksander Hleb – Success; Vassisriki Diabi – Success; Emmanual Adebayor – Success; Theo Walcott – Too early to judge for a young player with such a big fee, no doubting his potential though; Mart Poom – Failure (not sure why he was signed as he made just 1 appearance in 14 months); Tomas Rosicky – Too early to judge the injury prone star, obvious quality though
Overall Stats – 62 players signed: 29 Successes 47% – 29 Failures 47% – 4 Not Judged 7%
2006-2007
Joe O’Cearuill – Too young to judge; Fran Merida Perez – Too young to judge; Alexandre Song – Not enough appearances; William Gallas – Success (tricky one, has had his good and bad moments, but without him you feel the Arsenal defence would fold); Denilson – Too young to judge, looks class though; Lukasz Fabianski – Too young to judge; Nacer Barazite – Too young to judge; Eduardo Da Silva – Not enough games to judge, hopefully he makes a full recovery from terrible injury
Overall Stats – 70 players signed: 30 Successes 43% – 29 Failures 42% – 11 Not Judged 15%
2007-2008
Bakary Sagna – Success (An early judgement after 1 season, but Arsenal badly missed him in the closing months, and he made the PFA team of the year); Lassana Diarra – Failure (Quality player, but why sign him only to not use him, and then sell him at a time when you could do with a quality midfield player? Bizarre); Luke Freeman – Too young to judge
Overall Stats – 73 players signed: 31 Successes 42% – 30 Failures 41% – 12 Not Judged 17%
So a success rate of 42% (rising to a maximum 59% if all the 'not judged' players turn out to be a success) over his whole Arsenal managerial career. Is that what people expected? Is that a good success rate? Of course all managers have made bad decisions in their time in the transfer market, it is simply impossible to have a success rate higher than probably 65%, but does a 42% success rate make you a transfer market genius? Do the superb, bargain signings of the likes of Eboue, Toure, Henry, Anelka etc, make up for the big money wasted on Jeffers, Wright, Suker and the like?
I am not providing answers here, merely posing the questions. What appears to be noticeable is that Wenger fares better in the latter years of his reign (which maybe helps the myth as old errors are forgotten), and appears to fare better when signing unknowns as opposed to household names. Maybe he is a better judge now than he was then, maybe he has just got luckier, who knows. It has been interesting reminiscing about some often forgotten names though.
*The deliberate mistake is at the beginning of the article.
Patrick Vieira joined Arsenal on the 14thAugust 1996. Arsene Wenger was officially made manager of Arsenal on 1st October 1996.
Bruce Rioch, the previous manager (who also signed Dennis Bergkamp a full year earlier, in June 1995, another player who was often mistakenly referred to as one of Wenger’s signings), left Arsenal two days before the Vieira signing, so who signed Vieira exactly is debatable. Wenger may have had an influence, he might not, but we certainly cannot say with any certainty that Arsene Wenger signed Patrick Vieira for Arsenal. Wenger wasn’t even connected to the club at the time of the deal, so a deal made on his say so seems unlikely.
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2 months ago
The only way to make any sense of this, is to do the same with all 20 top flight managers or teams...gd luck Simon.
from 2 months ago
Its hard to asess every current manager in the EPL because most of them havent been there more than 4 years. But hey, whoever wants to do that reseach - goodluck to them lol......
from 2 months ago
Hmmm I don't think all 20 managers is necessary (especially as most have only been in the job 5 minutes.) But a review of Ferguson, Benitez and Moyes for example will give some points of comparison. I will get round to it some time.
I still think the above shows that Wenger has made as many mistakes as he has had successes, and puts in perspective how difficult the transfer market is. Its a lottery, and we can't label someone a genius in the transfer market on the basis of a couple of successes, likewise we can't label another a dud on the basis of a couple of failures.
2 months ago
i think you need to look at more than just signings though. factors such as price, age, squad strength have to be considered as well. the magnitude of the failures need to be weighed up against the successes as well.
is Fabregas' success equal in value to guy Demel's failure? If lets say we'd signed Veron for £28 million or however much they paid for him then thatd be a mistake to counter the Wenger magic of players like fabregas.
whats undeniable is that no manager has a better eye for great talent on the cheap than wenger.
Some of the players hes signed were in fact good players but just not quite god enough for arsenal. There are more ex arsenal players floating around the premiership than any other team. Thats a lot of premiership quality players that wenger signed. Upson wasnt a failure at Arsenal, nor was Volz, they just hardly got a game in.
there are some NOTABLE distasters (wright, jeffers) but there are a lot more NOTABLE successes (Henry, Petit, Vieira, Pires, etc).
On average per year Wenger has spent £3 million (taking in transfer fees paid out and received). Can any other manager claim his success on such a budget? Sure you can say he's a bit of a penny pincher but hes overseen a new stadium and has shown hes willing to take gambles when he feels that players justify it (Reyes, Walcott).
I like this article but it seems too basic in many ways. The test is set in a very black and white way. I'd say Veron on his own would count as big a failure as half the ones you attribute to wenger.
Shevchenko is a huge disappointment at Chelsea at the moment. The ENTIRE arsenal 11 that played against Chelsea last year at Stamford Bridge (and drew) cost less than him. IF wenger had a few more Shevchenkoesque transfers than you'd be right to question his transfer dealings. I'd still maintain hes made far more SIGNIFICANT good signings than bad ones.
Wenger the Wizard? Definitely. Sometimes his experiments fail, but when he gets the formula right, theres no better magic show around.
from 2 months ago
Thanks for the comments. I don't think you can compare Chelsea too much to Arsenal. They inevitably always pay well over the odds for players because they can, its as simple as that. If they end up selling Sheva for £2m, a £28m loss, what does it matter to Chelsea when they have an owner who has £10b and counting? a £28m loss is meaningless in that context.
Veron was a massive flop for Manchester United, no doubt about that, but Fergie brought through Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Neville, do those effectively 'free' players not outweigh that loss? Maybe those players would have got through without Fergie, we will never know. But what about Roy Keane, who cost about £3m, surely one of the bargains of all time, even though £3m was alot of money at the time, does that not outweigh the Veron waste?
Wenger is definitely a wizard in terms of the budget he works to (although that is his choice to do so, it is well documented that he has a mountain of cash to spend but chooses not to) is that a good decision considering such prudence has brought no trophies in three years? Would Roman Abramovich be happy if Jose Mourinho had spent no money, played great football, but won nothing?
I appreciate that my article is a crude blanket look, but in this context it is impossible to do anything else. A full examination of his signings taking into account every single factor would be a book on its own. I still think it throws up some interesting questions though, despite the fact that it only touches the surface. While many signings Wenger has made have had good careers at other clubs, that does not make them good signings. He brought them for Arsenal, not Fulham, or West Ham, or anyone else. He brought them to be in the Arsenal team, and if he deemed then to be not good enough so they were subsequently sold, surely that proves that for Arsenal, they were failures.
2 months ago
i think you need to look at more than just signings though. factors such as price, age, squad strength have to be considered as well. the magnitude of the failures need to be weighed up against the successes as well.
is Fabregas' success equal in value to guy Demel's failure? If lets say we'd signed Veron for £28 million or however much they paid for him then thatd be a mistake to counter the Wenger magic of players like fabregas.
whats undeniable is that no manager has a better eye for great talent on the cheap than wenger.
Some of the players hes signed were in fact good players but just not quite god enough for arsenal. There are more ex arsenal players floating around the premiership than any other team. Thats a lot of premiership quality players that wenger signed. Upson wasnt a failure at Arsenal, nor was Volz, they just hardly got a game in.
there are some NOTABLE distasters (wright, jeffers) but there are a lot more NOTABLE successes (Henry, Petit, Vieira, Pires, etc).
On average per year Wenger has spent £3 million (taking in transfer fees paid out and received). Can any other manager claim his success on such a budget? Sure you can say he's a bit of a penny pincher but hes overseen a new stadium and has shown hes willing to take gambles when he feels that players justify it (Reyes, Walcott).
I like this article but it seems too basic in many ways. The test is set in a very black and white way. I'd say Veron on his own would count as big a failure as half the ones you attribute to wenger.
Shevchenko is a huge disappointment at Chelsea at the moment. The ENTIRE arsenal 11 that played against Chelsea last year at Stamford Bridge (and drew) cost less than him. IF wenger had a few more Shevchenkoesque transfers than you'd be right to question his transfer dealings. I'd still maintain hes made far more SIGNIFICANT good signings than bad ones.
Wenger the Wizard? Definitely. Sometimes his experiments fail, but when he gets the formula right, theres no better magic show around.
2 months ago
I see what youre saying about Chelsea not caring about the loss but I'm only looking at the merits of the transfers themselves.
I know Fergie is probably the greatest manager of all time but he has set repeated transfer records in the UK. Roy Kene for £3 million then was a then record as well. What I think Fergie has above Wenger (until Wenger spends big) is a knack for buying big players for large amounts of money and seeing a good return. Aside from Veron and Forlan hes been very good at spending big. I cant think of a time where he's bought someone incredible on the cheap who flourished out of nothing. Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson, Tevez, Evra, Carrick, Hargreaves, Rooney have all been pretty pricey. Vidic was a bargain mind you.
I'm not sure how much credit he gets for the "free" players because they were just coming out of the academy at the time. To mould the team as he did was superb but I dont think he discovered them by any means. Fergie's incredible at buying the right players for Man Utd but they very rarely, if ever, come on the cheap. A few times hes gone for relative "unknowns" and they havent settled in. (Djemba Djemba, Kleberson, Forlan),
Wengers big buys are a bit hit and miss on the other hand. Jeffers and Reyes for example (just didnt work out). Wiltord was good. Thierry was outstanding. Walcott not sure about. Itll be interesting to see if he spends big money and if those signings pay off.
Hes definitely had a few flops but rarely has he made a huge loss on a player. Jeffers was one of them, but even with Reyes I think he virtually made his money back (given that we didnt pay the fee upfront).
Wengers got faith and hes been restructuring for a few years now, much like Man Utd have been. I've always maintined for the last couple of years that 2008/2009 would be Arsenal's year. This year there have been some pretty unfortunate things that happened to the Gunners. Losing Eduardo and conceding a non-penalty was hard for them I'm sure, as was the offside goal against Middlesborough when theres was ruled out, the penalties vs Man Utd and Liverpool, the offside goal conceded against Chelsea when leading, key injuries to Sagna, Rosicky, Van Persie, Flamini, Hleb, Clichy, Toure, Eduardo, Diaby, Denilson.
A team like Chelsea can afford those losses because they have £20 million sitting in the bench just in case. I think that is what Wenger will focus on in the summer. Arsenal at their best can outplay any side in England. With a killer instinct and a slightly more complete squad he may yet repay the gunners fans for saying "Wenger knows".
My rant aside, good article!
2 months ago
I think Evra cost £5.5m, so for a player who had already played in a Champions League final for Monaco, and is now one of the best left backs in the world, thats a pretty great deal. Fergie also signed the likes of Solskjaer and Schmeichel, who were both unknown and bargains, so I think he can get the cheap deals if he has to, he just doesn't have to take as many risks now because United can afford proven performers, or young mega-stars.
I admire your faith in your manager, and your players. I have the same faith in Rafa and the Liverpool team, and am confident that we will mount a challenge next season, even though I am sure most will not agree. Lets hope both Arsenal and Liverpool can make it a 4 horse race for the title next season, that really would be interesting.
2 months ago
Fair points.
Unlucky about last night by the way. You guys are in for a hell of a summer especially in the board room.
I actually know a few of the people at DIC and its a real shame you didnt get them to take over. They'd happily spend enough to make Abramovic's spree look like chicken feed. Hopefully they'll turn their focus onto us...
2 months ago
Cheers.
Well I still think DIC might end up in charge, the yanks at the moment seem to be unworkable, but we'll see. It will be an interesting summer!
2 months ago
Given a chance I think most Managers could easily sign the best players as its usually quite easy to figure out who they are as they will always stand out. A couple of years ago I was watching Arsenal play Tottenham and was wondering what makes Arsenal better than other teams like Tottenham even when Arsenal were going through tough times, which they were at that time and the big difference I noticed was in the so called squad players, in the grand scheme of things I've noticed Arsenals squad players tended to fit into their system more better, Wenger does not usually tinker too much unless forced to do so, I think they understand what their roles are but when called upon they tended to excel like Eboue in that year or Flamini this year. I think Wengers genius is in the unknown players who excel under him and become stars or getting players who were undervalued at their former clubs like Viera and Henry and making them blossom into stars
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