Rioch so Wright to buy Bergkamp

BRUCE RIOCH had just one season as Arsenal manager but delivered arguably the finest transfer coup of their modern history.

In the summer of 1995 he persuaded the board to spend a club record £7.5million to recruit Dennis Bergkamp from Inter Milan – £5m more than they had paid before.

When a club has signed Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and Ian Wright, rating the Dutch striker as the best ever is impossible to prove. It’s down to personal judgment.

But no one can question the impact Bergkamp (above) had in transforming Arsenal from a machine used to grinding out results to making football a thing of beauty.

He had grown up in the Ajax academy. He wasn’t a great scorer of goals but was a scorer of great goals. His instant control and balletic poise saw him elude some of the world’s best man-markers.

Wright’s assessment of Bergkamp is unequivocal, describing him as the “best signing Arsenal have made and ever will make”.