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Arsenal might not be as big a spending club as the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City or Manchester United, but they’ve still made plenty of big signings over the years, bringing world-class performers like Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the Premier League.
Unfortunately, the Gunners have also had a lot of transfer misses to go along with their hits, maybe not wasting as much money as some of their rivals but certainly bringing plenty of ridicule onto the club.
Here are the 5 worst signings in Arsenal’s history – with a handful of honourable mentions.
Honourable Mentions
#1 Kim Kallstrom
Beginning his career in the late 1990s, Kim Kallstrom made a name for himself across Europe as a classy midfielder who could operate as both a deep-lying playmaker and in a more attacking style. He won France’s Ligue 1 with Lyon on two occasions and even became Sweden’s fourth-most capped player, but unfortunately, his move to Arsenal didn’t work out at all.
Why? Injuries, essentially. Kallstrom was signed by the Gunners in January 2014 to provide cover in midfield, but the then-31-year-old was already past his physical best and arrived while rehabbing a back injury. The Swede’s Arsenal career ended just five months later after making only 4 appearances, basically meaning his time at the Emirates was pointless.
#2 Park Chu-Young
South Korea’s Park Chu-Young was always a bizarre signing for Arsenal, summed up by the fact that he apparently walked out of a medical with French club Lille on late notice to head to North London in August 2011. He scored his first goal for the club a couple of months later in an EFL Cup tie with Bolton, but then largely vanished from view.
Park made just 6 appearances for the Gunners in his debut season – just one in the Premier League, as a late substitute – before moving to Celta Vigo on loan. One more appearance for Arsenal followed, in October 2013, and a loan move to Watford only allowed him two more games. Just a season later he was back in Korea with a reputation as one of Arsenal’s greatest flops.
#3 Yaya Sanogo
French youngster Yaya Sanogo joined Arsenal in the summer of 2013 following a breakthrough at Auxerre, where he’d scored 10 goals in 13 appearances during the previous season in Ligue 2. To say the move to North London didn’t work out however would be a huge understatement.
Used largely as a substitute at the Emirates, Sanogo made 14 appearances in all competitions in his debut season, but failed to score a goal. 6 appearances followed in 2014/15 and he even found the net in a Champions League match with Borussia Dortmund, but it was clear that he just wasn’t up to standard, and he was loaned to Crystal Palace that January – and never played for Arsenal again.
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#5 Amaury Bischoff
Alarm bells probably should’ve rung for Arsenal fans in 2008 when manager Arsene Wenger described the signing of Franco-Portuguese midfielder Amaury Bischoff as “a gamble on talent” due to his questionable injury record, but then quite why the Gunners were ever in for the then-21-year-old remains a mystery.
Bischoff had just one appearance to his name for Bundesliga side Werder Bremen at that point, although he had made a total of 62 appearances for Bremen’s reserve side over the course of three seasons. Given Arsenal could boast the talents of midfielders like Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Alex Song at the time, quite why Wenger thought Bischoff could benefit the squad is anyone’s guess.
As it turned out, his time at the Emirates was basically a waste of a season; he played a total of about 25 Premier League minutes after replacing Theo Walcott in a win over Portsmouth, and was quietly released in the summer of 2009 when his one-year deal with the club expired. He’s since stated that he has no regrets about his time at Arsenal, giving one positive to the situation at least.
#4 Shkodran Mustafi
Germany’s Shkodran Mustafi remains at Arsenal at the time of writing and so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he could turn his career around at the Emirates, but right now that looks about as likely as the Gunners winning the Champions League this season – and of course, they’re not involved in the competition.
Mustafi – who cost a monstrous £35m in the summer of 2016 when he made the move from Spanish side Valencia – was supposed to shore up the Gunners’ somewhat creaking defence, but despite doing well in his first season, even going unbeaten in his first 18 games for the club, he was quickly exposed soon after.
Despite being one of Arsenal’s first-choice defenders in 2017/18 and 2018/19, the German’s form completely fell off a cliff and he was guilty of numerous errors that led to opposition goals – most notably in a match against Crystal Palace last April, when his botches led to a 2-3 loss that essentially cost the Gunners a Champions League spot for 2019/20.
Considering the large transfer fee that Arsenal paid for him – at a point in time when such fees were a rare thing for the Gunners to pay – it’s hard not to class Mustafi as one of their worst-ever signings. It’s hardly a surprise that he’s been frozen out of Premier League action thus far in the current season.
#3 Francis Jeffers
Once considered one of the brightest young prospects in the English game, striker Francis Jeffers joined Arsenal from Everton in the summer of 2001 for a fee of £8m, and Arsene Wenger infamously described him as his “fox in the box”, essentially hoping he’d become the club’s latest goal-poacher. Sadly, injuries curtailed his time at Highbury and he never lived up to his potential.
His first season at Arsenal saw him make just 10 appearances in all competitions, scoring just 2 goals, as the form of fellow strikers Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord meant he just couldn’t force his way into the first team. 2002/03 saw him fare slightly better – he made 28 appearances, scored 6 goals and made his England debut – but only started in the Premier League twice and again suffered from injuries.
2003/04 saw him loaned back to Everton, but his time there was hardly more successful and upon returning to Arsenal, he was immediately sold to Charlton Athletic for just £2.6m – meaning the Gunners made a hefty loss on him.
To make matters worse, it was also revealed in 2002 that Wenger had chosen to sign Jeffers over Ruud Van Nistelrooy – who went on to massive success at Manchester United instead.
#2 Marouane Chamakh
Moroccan target man Marouane Chamakh joined Arsenal from Bordeaux on a free transfer in the summer of 2010, and he actually arrived with plenty of fanfare. Chamakh had scored a total of 32 goals across the previous two seasons in France and bore a physical resemblance to Cristiano Ronaldo – but unfortunately for Gunners fans, his skills on the pitch didn’t come close to those of the Portuguese legend.
Chamakh made a total of 44 appearances in his first season at the Emirates, and was able to score a total of 11 goals, but due to his playing style – he felt like a throwback to the early 90s when English football was played in a more direct way – he never truly established himself as a first-team staple and only made 18 starts in the Premier League.
2011/12 saw him slip further down the pecking order; he made just one start in the Premier League and scored just one goal, and it came as no surprise when he was shipped off to West Ham on loan for the second half of the 2012/13 season after barely featuring for Arsenal.
The fact that he only played 3 times for the Hammers – scoring no goals – and then only managed 7 goals in 60 Premier League appearances at Crystal Palace after moving there suggests he was never quite up to the job, and so the fact that he was Arsenal’s marquee signing in 2010 puts him high on this list.
#1 Igors Stepanovs
Arsenal have made plenty of bad signings but none have garnered as much ridicule over the years as the £1.35m purchase of Latvian defender Igors Stepanovs in 2000. Stepanovs was supposedly signed to cover for the injured Tony Adams, but after some horrific performances, it was clear that he was never capable of filling the boots of the Gunners’ legendary captain.
Stepanovs actually started decently enough – he scored on his Arsenal debut in an EFL Cup game against Ipswich Town – but things went downhill rapidly when he started at centre-back in the Gunners’ soul-destroying 6-1 defeat to eventual Premier League champions Manchester United. The Latvian would only feature in one more match that season.
Somehow, Stepanovs was kept around at Arsenal for a further two seasons – making just a handful of appearances – before ending his Gunners career in 2003 by moving to Belgian side KSK Beveren on loan. During his time at Highbury he made just 17 Premier League appearances, and only played 31 times for the club overall.
A few years later, former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour offered an explanation for Stepanovs’ signing in his autobiography; according to Parlour, the Latvian was signed after an unimpressive trial period with the club in the summer of 2000, largely because the Gunners’ senior players showered him with praise as part of an in-joke at the expense of fellow defender Martin Keown.
After his poor performances for the club, it’s safe to say the joke backfired.
