You may have noticed that it is now twenty years since Arsène Wenger took the hot seat at Arsenal.
Here, at DCHQ, we thought it was time to have a look at his top five captures since his arrival in north London.
Here’s #3
Sol Campbell 2001-06 & 2010.
The Sol man has jumped a place since I began writing these articles. Closer inspection of his record, or more to the point Arsenal’s record in Campbell’s first, imperial, period in the good half of north London tells you why. We won at least one trophy in each of his first four seasons at the club and reached the Champions League final, in which he scored, in the last one.
We’ll quickly gloss over the West Ham breakdown which saw Sol play only a peripheral role in our run to that Champions League Final. Well, we owe him that, don’t we?
At his peak, he was that good.
Plus he left Spurs on a free. Let me say this again: the Spurs captain left Spurs to ultimately replace the Arsenal captain on a free transfer.
He deserves inclusion just for that, really.
If you feel differently then let me point out that, in his first season at Arsenal, “Double, double, double, Sol Campbell has won the double”. Two years after that, he would be celebrating another Premier League title in the stadium hole he had called home for nine years.
His colossal partnership with Kolo Touré provided the rock solid foundations from which our title challenge could not be shaken: Invincibles. It’s impossible to imagine that this could have happened without Sol Campbell.
His signing revitalised an ageing defence and he was, at his peak, the best centre back in the country. Even when he came back to Arsenal in 2010, a little slower and bigger around the bottom, he was still a hell of a centre back.
Feel free to hit me up on Twitter and tell me if you agree.