The Arsenal announced a couple of days ago that they'd reached an agreement to transfer Freddie Ljungberg to West Ham for 3 million pounds. Despite being a shadow of his former self the past 2 seasons, I for one am sad to see him go.
We bought Freddie from a Swedish club (Halmstad I think) in 1999, after our double-winning season of 97/98. He took over the number 8 jersey from Ian Wright (my all-time favourite Arsenal player) when Wrighty was given a free transfer (also to West Ham) after breaking the Arsenal goal-scoring record which had stood since the 1930's (and which has since been bettered by a certain Thierry Henry).
I remember Freddie scoring on his debut, in the charity shield against Moan Utd, lobbing old 'Red Nose' Schmeichel. By far, his best season was the 01/02 double-winning season, where we hardly missed an injured Robert Pires thanks to Ljungberg's performances. My favourite goal of his has to be the one he scored against Chelski in the 2002 FA Cup final (Ray Parlour scored the other goal). Watched that match live at a sports bar in Melbourne Crown Casino with 500 other screaming Gooners ... absolute magic. Clips of some of his goals can be viewed at the link above (click on the blog article title).
Freddie (currently Sweden's captain) became the longest-serving player in the squad once Dennis Bergkamp retired in 2006. Now that he's gone, we only have 3 players left from the 2004 Invicibles (Kolo Toure, Gilbert O'Silva and Mad Jens) ... which is a huge turnover in only 3 years. Am pretty sure Mad Jens will leave at the end of the new season (he'll be about 38 by then) and the 3rd generation of Wenger's Arsenal will then have taken shape.
Thursday 26 July 2007
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