Arsène Wenger is often hailed as a master when dealing in the transfer market. Yet for all the successful signings that he has made since taking over as Arsenal manager in September 1996, there have been a few that failed to make the grade.

— Wenger will fondly remember bringing to the club the likes of Marc Overmars, Emmanuel Petit, Fredrik Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry.

— When Vieira, bought from AC Milan for £3.5 million in 1996, left for Juventus for £13.7 million two years ago, Arsenal made a handsome profit.

— It was the same with Henry, bought for £10.5 million from Juventus in 1999 and then sold – eight years and 226 goals later – for £16.2 million to Barcelona last week. Good business for a player approaching his 30th birthday.

— Nicolas Anelka will be recalled as the daddy of all Wenger’s dealings, having joined from Paris Saint-Germain for £500,000 in 1997. When “Le Sulk” sloped off to Real Madrid in 1999, Arsenal collected £23 million.

— Yet, of Wenger’s 50 or so buys, there are failures aplenty. Sylvain Wiltord, a £13 million capture from Bordeaux in 2000, scored 49 goals in four years. When he left Highbury for nothing, he was not exactly a wanted man – until yesterday. Police in France arrested him when he turned up for preseason training with Lyons because he had failed to appear in court on speeding charges.

— Luis Boa Morte, the Portugal winger, mostly flattered, while Christopher Wreh, the Liberian, and Kaba Diawara, from Guinea, barely registered. And can anyone recall Eric Chukwunyelu Obinna or Tomas Danilevicious?

— José Antonio Reyes, the Spain winger, soon became homesick, after signing from Seville for £10.5 million in January 2004, and spent last season on loan with Real Madrid. And what about Francis Jeffers, the much-lauded “Fox in the Box” who cost £8 million from Everton six years ago? Not such a cunning signing that one, Arsène.