Arsenal have arguably had fewer ‘weird’ signings than a lot of other clubs, but not for the reasons you might think.
Having the same manager in place for 20 years ought to result in a level of consistency and reliability in new recruits – and for a long time it did, but Arsene Wenger made plenty of his more dubious signings towards the end of his reign and the tradition continues to this day.
It’s also worth adding the relative lack of weirdness compared to the likes of West Ham and Tottenham comes from the fact that so many of the Gunners’ questionable recruits were signed before they had actually played professionally.
When that happens, you’ve got plausible deniability. Sure, people will be confused as to why a League Two-level 22-year-old is wandering around like a bemused squirrel, but it makes more sense when you realise they arrived as a 16-year-old with potential.
As always, these players are ranked not by talent but by weirdness, and where possible we’ve stuck to the actual football part of their career.
This means there’s no room for Samir Nasri’s Drip Doctors episode or Kolo Toure’s reinvention as Francois the car salesman, but there are still plenty of oddities to go around.
25. Joel Campbell
Towards the end of Joel Campbell’s Arsenal spell, there was a huge battle of wills between Wenger’s desire to never play the Costa Rican and his desire to keep him at the club, with an apparent refusal to compromise on either.
In seven years for the club, he made a whole 23 appearances. He was under contract for longer than Robert Pires and William Gallas yet made fewer appearances than Scott Marshall, Remi Garde and John Hartson.
24. Mikael Silvestre
Wenger developed a reputation at Arsenal for signing young players full of potential and, on occasion, seeing them underwhelm at big clubs.
By 2008, though, the manager had found a shortcut. Why wait 10 years to see if a player will become a spent force by 31 when you can pick up a ready-made model at the low, low price of ‘still probably too much’?
23. Lassana Diarra
When Lassana Diarra left Arsenal, they were joint top of the Premier League and on course for a sustained title challenge. By the end of the season they were third, but Diarra was celebrating after leading Portsmouth to the FA Cup.
Normally signing someone on deadline day and releasing them in the following window would rank much higher in the weirdness stakes, but Diarra’s entire career was one elongated…
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