During his illustrious career with Arsenal, manager Arsene Wenger made a great number of cheap, or ‘under the radar’ signings, which turned out to be not only top players, but were sold for massive amount of money later on. One of the best examples of that was Kolo Toure. The enthusiastic Ivory Coast defender was signed in 2002 for only 23 million Ksh directly from ASEC Mimosas from Abidjan. He ended put winning the Premier League the same season, along with two FA Cups, a Community Shield and was Football League Cup and UEFA Champions League runner-up before switching to Manchester City.20 years ago this week, the Arsenal signed unknown 20-year-old defender Kolo Touré for £167,000.16 months later, Kolo lifted the Premier League, featuring in 37/38 games for The Invincibles 👏— Gunners (@Gunnersc0m) February 13, 2022 After being involved in 327 matches in all competition for the Gunners (14 goals, 13 assists), the Ivorian was sold to the Citizens for 2.1 billion in 2009, where he also won the Premier League title. But his beginning at the Highbury was shaky at least, as another former legend Ray Parlor told a hilarious story from Toure’s first training with the club. The Ivorian was on trial and didn’t sign any contract yet up to that point.“This one day they had Kolo Toure, Martin Keown in Kolo Toure’s first training session. Against them they had Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. I was playing on the right hand side and Arsene Wenger used to sit there, it was more for forwards really, and we used to do pattern play. If I would come inside then Henry would go outside and vice versa with Pires on the left hand side. I rolled the ball into Thierry Henry and Kolo Toure from nowhere has smashed him from behind. Two-footed tackle. Terrible tackle. Seriously, could have been a red card in a normal game. Our best player is rolling around. Arsene Wenger says ‘Kolo, what are you doing? Don’t tackle, don’t tackle.’ He just wants him to stand there. ‘Oh, sorry, sorry” recalls Parlor.Song admits he left Arsenal to become a millionaireBut off course, Kolo didn’t stopped there. He did the same thing again, this time to Dennis Bergkamp.“Next minute ball goes into Dennis Bergkamp, they’ve swapped now. Kolo Toure does exactly the same and two-foots Dennis Bergkamp and we are thinking ‘this is unbelievable. How can we win the league if our two best players has been taken out by the trialist. He must be working for someone else’. Arsene Wenger says ‘right no more tackling”. Willian admits he wanted to quit Arsenal after only three monthsAnd then the Ivorian did the unthinkable – he tackled the boss himself.“Next ball comes in and Kolo Toure makes a great tackle, reads it and the ball is flipped up into the air. Arsene Wenger used to stand right in the middle of the midfield and forwards and he’d try and look at the movement, so the ball has gone up in the air and Kolo Toure has his eye on the ball – he’s chasing the ball – and where did it land? Right at Arsene Wenger’s foot and he’s two-footed Arsene Wenger. Proper tackle. All you heard was ‘ahhhh’. The lads are like ‘this is unbelievable. He’s took out Bergkamp, Henry and Wenger on his trial. Wenger has had to limp off. He’s gone back to the medical room. Kolo Toure is like ‘oh no’ and nearly crying. He can’t believe it. It’s his big day at Arsenal and he’s took out two of our best players and the manager” said Parlor.’My biggest regrets are Ronaldo and Kante’But in the end, the French manager did see Toure’s desire and decided he was good enough to play for Arsenal.“That afternoon, I remember going into the medical room to see Gary Lewin about something and Arsene Wenger is sitting there with a big ice pack on his ankle and I felt sorry for Kolo Toure. I said ‘boss, I don’t think he meant to kick you like that’. He went ‘what? Look at my ankle’. And he had a big lump on his ankle. ‘Well he didn’t mean it boss’. He said ‘I know he didn’t mean it, I like his desire. We’ll sign him tomorrow’ and that was it. We signed him for £150,000 because he liked his desire. He could get that out of him and change the way he played just by his desire kicking them two players and he ended up being an amazing player for Arsenal” finished Parlor. And good signing he was.
