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Ian Wright has revealed he almost signed for Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham instead of his beloved Arsenal.
The legendary striker completed a £2.5m move to Arsenal in September 1991 after spending six seasons at Crystal Palace.
Wright says he was more than content at Palace – who signed him shortly before his 22nd birthday after spotting him playing for Greenwich Borough – and was not expecting to leave.
That all changed when he was summoned to speak with then-Crystal Palace manager Steve Coppell, who informed him the club had accepted a bid from Arsenal.
Wright is now synonymous with Arsenal but says there was ‘no link’ at the time and ‘didn’t expect’ to leave Selhurst Park, where he scored 118 goals in 277 appearances.
In fact, the only transfer speculation Wright was aware of at the time was links with fellow Premier League clubs Manchester United and Liverpool, and Arsenal’s fierce north London rivals Tottenham.
‘It was really strange how it came about,’ Wright recalled on Sky Bet’s The Overlap. ‘I wasn’t at any stage thinking about leaving or pushing for a move.
‘Then one day I got a call saying I needed to see Steve Coppell. I went in to see him and he was pretty solemn and sad. He just said, “we’ve accepted a bid from Arsenal”.
‘I didn’t have a clue. I never knew anything about it. There was never any link between me and Arsenal in the papers.
‘After the 1990 FA Cup final (which Crystal Palace lost to Manchester United), there was a lot of stuff with Liverpool, there was a chat about Tottenham as well and there was Man United.
‘But I didn’t expect anything to happen at that time, I was 28 by that point.’
Wright proved to be a huge success at Arsenal, scoring 185 goals in 288 games to become the club’s all-time record goalscorer, though Thierry Henry later surpassed him.
During his seven-year spell at Arsenal, Wright lifted the Premier League trophy, two FA Cups, the League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
Discussing his love for Arsenal in a separate interview, Wright said: ‘Arsenal is the greatest, greatest football club in the world.
‘When I first got to Arsenal people were saying “What are you buying him for?” I was sitting there watching the telly [the evening after I’d signed] watching people talking about me, “He’s not good enough to play for Arsenal’, and I swear to God I sat down watching the news literally sh*tting myself about going to Arsenal.
‘I went to David Rocastle’s house that night and we stayed up till 4 in the morning talking about Arsenal, the club he loved.
‘Arsenal have got a certain class and dignity. I just want to be remembered for being a hard-working honest professional who done the best he could with the opportunity he got.’
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