Serves You Right For Not Signing Me, Arsene!

                    
If Arsene Wenger needed any reminder of quite possibly the most costly transfer mistake of his career in charge at Arsenal, Didier Drogba provided it at the Emirates on Sunday.

Drogba's late double against Arsenal to clinch the Emirates Cup for Galatasaray improved the striker's astonishing record against the Gunners to 15 goals in 15 matches.

In fact, in the 1175 minutes that Drogba has played against Arsenal, he has scored on average one goal every 78 minutes and 20 seconds.

It is the stuff of nightmares for Wenger, who once rejected the chance to sign Drogba for just £100,000. During promising Ivorian's four-year period at Le Mans from 1998 to 2002, Wenger had his scouts keep an eye on him.


Wenger decided against a move, though, and Drogba eventually moved to Ligue 1 club Guingamp at the age of 23 for £80,000. Wenger said in 2009: 'We watched him carefully when he was at Le Mans. It was not only us who watched him. But we felt he might not be completely ready.

'It was a mistake but, when you are in football, everyone can understand. We had Thierry Henry. We said we would follow Drogba's progress. We never ruled him out.'

In 2004, following a hugely successful season at Marseille, Drogba signed for Chelsea for £24million. If that was not enough of a kick in the teeth for Wenger, Drogba's form on the pitch against his team certainly was.


His record of 13 goals in 14 matches against Arsenal during his time at Stamford Bridge included five doubles, many of them coming in key matches. Wenger breathed a sigh of relief when Drogba left Chelsea for Shanghai Shenhua last year, saying at the time: 'I don’t know how much Chelsea miss him but we don't miss him. He did a lot of damage against us in every game.'

Drogba may be in the twilight of his career at the age of 35 but showed at the Emirates he could well remain a thorn in Wenger's side until the day he hangs up his boots.


The Frenchman may now be crossing his fingers and toes that Arsenal do not end up in the same group as Galatasaray if Arsenal make it through to the draw for the Champions League proper in Monaco on August 29.



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