Arsenals best January signings
By Jack Lacey-Hatton
With just days remaining in the January transfer window Arsenal are still yet to make a move and attempt to improve the squad.
Mikel Arteta will hope to see reinforcements arrive before the deadline passes, but at this point it looks far from certain.
January is a notoriously difficult month for football clubs to do their business, but in the past the Gunners have been known to make high-profile additions to the squad in the middle of the season.
In fact some of the best singings made by Arsene Wenger have come during, rather than before, the campaign.
So today let’s take a look back at three of the best mid-season signings in Arsenal history.
Jose Antonio Reyes
The late Jose Antonio Reyes has to be on this list as his signing helped contribute to the greatest achievement in Premier League history.
Reyes joined the Gunners from Sevilla for an eventual fee of around £17million on January 28 2004.
The technically-gifted winger and occasional forward had a tough start to life in North London scoring an own goal in a League Cup defeat at Middlesbrough in only his second appearance.
But his arrival came at a crucial time for Arsene Wenger’s invincible-chasing team.
As much as the 2003-04 starting XI was arguably the greatest in the club history, when it came to squad depth, Manchester United and Chelsea had larger pools to pick from.
Journalists and pundits had even argued pre-season that a title challenge maybe difficult to sustain with such a thin squad.
Wenger had only brought in Jens Lehmann and Phillipe Senderos as fist-team signings the previous summer, and with injuries starting to kick-in over the winter, the signing of Reyes gave the team a much-needed fresh attacking option.
Reyes did take time to adjust to English football, but scoring twice to knock Chelsea out of the FA Cup was a turning point and the Spaniard started to receive greater affection from the Highbury crowd.
By the end of the season he had really found his stride, scoring a crucial equaliser at Portsmouth and the winner at Fulham in the 36th and 37th league games of the invincible season.
Without the signing of Reyes, there is every chance the Premier League’s only undefeated season would have never taken place.
Kolo Toure
Kolo Toure joined Arsenal halfway through a successful title charge in 2001-02, signing in February, a year before January 31st became the last day clubs in England could do business.
Few knew about Toure before he was signed by Wenger, but over the next few seasons he would become one of the most consistent centre halves in the Premier League.
The Ivorian defender wasn’t a mid-season signing that made an instant impact, with Martin Keown or Igor Stepanvos usually partnering Sol Campbell for the rest of the season, and actually had to wait till the 2002 Community Shield to make his debut.
But he quickly became an outstanding player for the Gunners, originally deployed at right-back or as a screening midfielder.
Wenger soon started to use him at the heart of the defence, where Toure became the best partner Sol Campbell had while at Highbury.
He remains one of the best mid-season signings ever made by Arsenal.
Andrei Arshavin
A winter window signing that was so late it was only actually confirmed the day after the deadline.
But Andrei Arshavin was a wanted man back in early 2009 and Arsenal had to pay £15million to fight off some serious competition for his signature, having stared at Euro 2008 for a Russian national side that made the final four and UEFA Cup winners Zenit Saint Petersburg.
Although the part-forward, part-playmaker would become a divisive figure towards the end of his time at the club, he is worthy of the list purely for the impact made during his first few months at the club.
In one of his first games at the Emirates Stadium against Blackburn Rovers, Arshavin created two and scored a magnificent solo goal to open his account for the club as Arsenal won 4-0.
The Russian was also key in a 2-0 victory over Manchester City and scored in a 4-1 win at Wigan in the following weeks.
That came just before his greatest performance in an Arsenal shirt, and one of the best individual displays seen in Wenger’s time at the club, when Arshavin scored all four in a breathless 4-4 draw at Liverpool.
Arsenal managed to qualify for the Champions League at the end of the season and this signing proved to be crucial in that chase.
As stated, Arshavin’s subsequent years at the club were far more inconsistent, but that shouldn’t diminish his initial impact just months after a dramatic move from Zenit.
