In the modern era, clubs often do extensive scouting work to identify targets across what can be several months or even years. But for one Premier League icon, all it took to achieve a big move to Arsenal was one singular televised performance.
Freddie Ljungberg put pen to paper on a move to the Gunners for a fee in the region of £3million in 1998, with the Swede establishing himself as one of the club’s most important players of the early Wenger years. But had it not been for the legendary Arsenal boss deciding to tune into Sweden’s Euro 2000 qualifying match against England in September 1999, he might never have made the move to the Premier League.
Explaining how Ljungberg first came to his attention in the book ‘The Wenger Revolution: Twenty Years of Arsenal’, the French coach said: “I saw Freddie Ljungberg giving a hell of a lot of problems to Martin Keown while watching him on television as he played for Sweden against England. I decided to buy him then. He became a huge Arsenal player.
"In this game, it was all his character. They played that game in Sweden on a Saturday and then we bought him the next week because I liked what he did, his character."
It worked out to be the right decision, as Ljungberg won two Premier League titles - including Arsenal’s 2003/04 invincible triumph - and three FA Cups during his stint with the north London outfit. He was also part of the Arsenal team that reached the Champions League final in 2006 - their only European Cup final to date.
It came as no surprise, given Ljungberg made a dream start to life at Arsenal, scoring on his debut against rivals Manchester United. On the performance, Wenger remarked: “I remember I bought him on against Manchester United and he scored.
“I was thinking that when your guy comes on, you always have a feeling straight away whether it’s his place there. Usually we think you have to give them time but with experience, you think that the guys who make it showed you that they had the quality to be there in their first game. Freddie had that, that decisiveness in his mind and that desire to win."
Even to this day, Ljungberg is still revered by the Arsenal faithful, and it’s safe to say the decision by Wenger to turn on the TV was the right one!