Özim wrote:theHotHead wrote:Ozim, your argument i basically any player that chooses another club meant we didn't appeal, players snub Real and Barca, does that mean they don't appeal either ? Nonsense.
Bergkamp WAS at the top of his game when we bought him, he was one of the best players in the world, he still scored some cracking goals for Inter Milan, he just struggled to adjust to Italian football, there was nothing wrong with his game. The same with Henry, he went to Italy and his game wasn't suited to it, he came to Arsenal and the rest is history.
Overmars was one of the best players in the world when we bought him, we hadn't won the league under Wenger when we bought him and Wenger was a relative unknown still - so Overmars didn't come to Arsenal because we had a top name manager there. It was the lure of playing for Arsenal football club.
Bergkamp had struggled in Italy and it was between us and Villa as to where he’d go, obviously he was a top player talent wise but his stock had fallen due to his tough time in Italy.
Henry was at Monaco but we were already on the up by then anyway.
Overmars was at Ajax but had just had a long injury lay-off and no one knew if he would reproduce the form he had shown.
What I’m saying is that although they were exciting signings for a club where we were a the time they weren’t players with a host of top clubs after them.
When we came head to head with other big clubs we usually missed out in those days, I remember us missing out on Juninho to Middlesborough, I was gutted.
The guy was brilliant for Boro as well.
I just think the longer this mediocrity continues the worse it will get, because players will see us as a club who win and achieve nothing and a club not worth going to from a career point of view.
You clearly were not around when Bergkamp joined Arsenal.
At the time few people actually watched Italian football or would be following closely how Bergkamp was doing in Italy.
It would an absolute tiny minority of the fan base.
The fans knew Bergkamp mainly from international football and had heard how great he was at Ajax (even then very few would have actually seen him at Ajax)
He was simply a huge name that everyone - including the players - were in awe of when he signed for us.
You have absolutely no clue on who we were even in for back then, never mind who we missed out on.