Every Premier League club’s greatest ever loanee

ARSENAL – Yossi Benayoun
Dani Ceballos does not have the highest of bars to clear. Arsene Wenger’s blatant mistrust of the loan system means that, in 27 years as a Premier League club, Arsenal have brought in just ten players on temporary deals. On a sliding scale starting at the bottom with Denis Suarez and Fabian Caballero, Yossi Benayoun sits closer to Thierry Henry and the legendary Kim Kallstrom as a sensible, fruitful move.

After spells with West Ham, Liverpool and Chelsea, the Israel international was parachuted in to rescue Arsenal on deadline day in 2011. The Gunners had lost 8-2 to Manchester United three days prior, leading to the arrivals of Park Chu-young, Andre Santos, Per Mertesacker, Mikel Arteta and Benayoun in the space of 24 hours. He was named captain for a game against Manchester City in November, scored a crucial late winner against Aston Villa in December, received a standing ovation after a north London derby win in February, and had played an important role in securing Champions League football for another season by May.

ASTON VILLA – James Milner
It was as part of a clause in Nolberto Solano’s return to Newcastle in 2005 that Aston Villa received his ready-made replacement. A 19-year-old James Milner was sent to work with David O’Leary for the season, the two having narrowly missed out on crossing paths at Leeds three years earlier. The midfielder’s development at St James’ Park had been stunted by the departure of Sir Bobby Robson and subsequent appointment of Graeme Souness, but he would flourish at Villa as expected.

By summer 2006 the future European champion was the subject of a tug of war. Villa, now managed by Martin O’Neill and still desperate to keep Milner, agreed a £4m move, only for Glenn Roeder’s Newcastle to renege on negotiations. He stayed – but only until 2008 when he was finally unveiled as a £12m Villa signing.

BOURNEMOUTH – Steve Cook
From October 27 to November 24 in 2011, Bournemouth completed short-term loan deals for three of their four highest Premier League appearance makers. Charlie Daniels, Simon Francis and Steve Cook were all only expected to stay until January of the following year, but each of them signed permanent contracts within a couple of months. Eddie Howe would eventually benefit when he was appointed in October 2012, establishing each as first-team members of a squad that would rise to the Premier League within three years. Cook’s stock has fallen somewhat from its absolute peak, but he has still missed just 13 league matches in the top flight.

BRIGHTON – Glenn Murray
There was always something about Glenn Murray and Brighton. A £300,000 signing under Dean Wilkins in 2008, the striker scored 54 goals in 118 games in League One. After joining bitter rivals Crystal Palace before spells at Reading and Bournemouth, the veteran answered the Championship call of Chris Hughton to return on loan in 2016. All it took was 23 goals in 45 games to remind the Seagulls what they had been missing; they simply refused to let him ever leave again.

BURNLEY – Ben Mee
Michael Keane became a £25m defender after initially joining Burnley on loan, while Kieran Trippier was a Diego Simeone disciple in the making. Sean Dyche has had no recent luck, with Georges-Kevin Nkoudou, Jon Flanagan and Patrick Bamford all duly returned to sender. But Ben Mee has turned his one season at Turf Moor – where he planned to impress enough “to get a few first-team games back at Manchester City” – into a Claret career. An ever-present last year and in the promotion campaign in 2015/16, he gets none of the plaudits of James Tarkowski despite being arguably more consistent.

CHELSEA – George Weah
It is not every day that a former Ballon d’Or winner and future Liberian president rocks up to play alongside Kevin Hitchcock and Emerson Thome. Yet there Chelsea were in January 2000, unveiling George Weah on a loan deal until the end of the season. A day after joining, the forward immediately endeared himself to the fans by scoring four minutes from time in a 1-0 home win over Tottenham, before adding crucial goals against Wimbledon and Liverpool en route to finishing fifth. The forward also started the FA Cup final victory against Aston Villa, having netted in the fifth and sixth rounds at home to Leicester and Gillingham. Radamel Falcao and Alexandre Pato could barely lay a glove on him.

CRYSTAL PALACE – Wilfried Zaha
As much as the club seemingly want to pretend Jordan Ayew was a resounding success, the true litmus test of Selhurst Park loans might well be one of his old new teammates. Mamadou Sakho was an inspired addition in 2017 but Wilfried Zaha edges this race for longevity and value. What was effectively his first loan spell at Selhurst Park ended with some play-off heroics; his second 18 months later has delivered continuous rewards that Palace are eager to reap one way or another.

EVERTON – Mikel Arteta
It seems harsh that the transfer reputation of David Moyes was tainted by memories of the Marouane Fellaini debacle, the three random Ander Herrera lawyers and Gareth Bale helicopters. As laughable as those situations were at Manchester United, he often maximised meagre budgets at Everton. One such occasion saw Mikel Arteta drafted in as Thomas Gravesen’s replacement in January 2005. The Spaniard arrived midway through a season in a completely alien league, but featured 12 times as the Toffees stuck to a fourth-place finish. Arteta signed on the dotted line that summer, earning Player of the Year awards at Goodison Park in each of the subsequent two seasons, and learned a few things from the greatest Scottish manager ever to later pass on to Pep Guardiola.

LEICESTER – Robert Huth
Youri Tielemans might eventually surpass him, but few players have been as quietly influential in Leicester’s recent remarkable history as Robert Huth. The Foxes were bottom of the Premier League and three points from safety when he joined in February 2015. Seven of their 11 league wins that season came in the 14 matches he started. Yet having been parachuted in as part of a rescue mission, the centre-half helped Leicester achieve the impossible when he signed for £3m in June. He missed just three games of the following season, with Claudio Ranieri’s side conceding in each, to win his third Premier League title. Not that he was a mere defensive colossus alongside Wes Morgan: he scored late in a vital 1-0 win over Tottenham and netted twice a month later in a 3-1 victory at Manchester City.

LIVERPOOL – Ronny Rosenthal
It was not Ian Rush or John Barnes that scored the last goal in a championship-winning season for Liverpool, but Ronny Rosenthal. “Without him we wouldn’t have won it,” manager Kenny Dalglish later said of the striker, who arrived on loan from Standard Liege in March 1990 and promptly scored seven goals, adding two assists in eight games. “He changed games, scored vital goals and disrupted the opponents,” Dalglish added. “When he was brought on during games it galvanised the fans and they pushed the team forward.” The striker earned a permanent move that did not follow such a prosperous track, yet without him their wait for a top-flight league title would be even longer.

MANCHESTER CITY – Marc-Vivien Foe
“I have to say at this moment that the two clubs are a long way apart,” said Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards in May 1998, the Premier League runners-up having seen Lens reject a £3m bid for midfielder Foe. The Cameroon international missed out on the chance to take David May’s place in the Treble celebrations 12 months later, but would eventually find his way to Manchester by 2002. Kevin Keegan’s City had just been promoted as First Division champions and sought the temporary services of the Lyon midfielder, who would score the club’s final goal at their Maine Road Stadium the following April. Foe’s devastating death two months later in June, the 28-year-old collapsing on the pitch during a Confederations Cup game against Colombia, came as City were negotiating his permanent signing.

MANCHESTER UNITED – Carlos Tevez
As good as Andy Kellett was, and as impactful as William Prunier remains, Carlos Tevez was crowned a Premier League, European and world champion at Old Trafford. Henrik Larsson might have induced standing ovations after dropping back to play in midfield against Middlesbrough, but he was usurped a season later. Tevez joined on a two-year loan in 2007, scoring 34 goals in 99 games, netting the opening penalty in the 2008 Champions League final shootout and becoming the sh*thouse Robin to Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney’s Batmen.

The Argentine would eventually boil all of the p*ss by crossing the city divide upon his 2009 departure, but he left after winning almost every honour available to him. That elusive FA Cup would soon arrive under Roberto Mancini before he started kicking up another fuss.

NEWCASTLE – Loic Remy
“The need for us to strengthen up front was a priority and I have been working very hard to secure one of our targets in this position,” said Joe Kinnear, unwilling to take the credit for the arrival of Loic Remy on loan in August 2013. Newcastle had pursued the forward that January to no avail, opting to instead capitalise on QPR’s Premier League relegation. Remy contrived to score 14 goals in 24 league starts after swapping west London for St James’ Park that summer. Their Player of the Year was subsequently subject to an £8.5m bid from Liverpool, only to fail his medical and end up at future title winners Chelsea in 2014.

NORWICH – Darren Huckerby
“I got two calls from two separate agents, who didn’t work for me, saying they could get me a move to Liverpool. I said I wasn’t interested,” Darren Huckerby claimed upon his Norwich exit in 2011. “After the season Gordon Strachan rang me up, he was at Celtic then, offering Champions League football.”

To field interest from the European champions and a post-Henrik Larsson Celtic was no small matter, particularly as a striker at a relegated club. Huckerby was said to have rejected overtures from two clubs who’ll never walk alone in 2005, having moved to Carrow Road from Manchester City two years prior. His three-month loan became a five-year stay which incorporated one Premier League promotion, two Player of the Year awards, two runners-up positions and an entry into Norwich’s Hall of Fame.

SHEFFIELD UNITED – Dean Henderson
When Manchester United come contemplate life after David de Gea, they needn’t be too fearful. If all goes to plan, they will have a supremely gifted goalkeeper with experience of both lower-league promotion and Premier League prosperity. No player had a bigger hand in Sheffield United’s rise than Ol’ Big Hands himself. Chris Wilder would welcome a repeat of his league-leading 21 clean sheets from last season.

SOUTHAMPTON – Ryan Bertrand
It is not every day you find yourself loaning a Champions League winner. Ryan Bertrand’s surprise star turn for Chelsea in the 2012 final led to no regular place at Stamford Bridge, with the remainder of his half-century of Chelsea appearances remembered by few. Ronald Koeman liked what he saw: the left-back arrived in July 2014, signed for £10m the following February, and was a PFA Team of the Year member by April.

TOTTENHAM – Jurgen Klinsmann
Without Jurgen Klinsmann there might have been no Champions League final, no new stadium and not even the distant prospect of a damn cheese room. Jay Goppingen’s brief return to north London was as productive as his first stint. His 30 goals in 1994/95 came for a team with genuine aspirations, but nine goals in 15 games on loan from Sampdoria two and a half seasons later dismissed fears of relegation. That he proceeded to stroll off into the sunset straight after, embracing retirement in 1998, made the reunion all the more fleetingly romantic. Shame his doppelgänger cropped up in America a little while after.

WATFORD – Matej Vydra
Two loans, 98 games, 32 goals, one play-off final defeat, one automatic Championship promotion, one Championship Player of the Season award. It all went to pot when Matej Vydra joined permanently and played three times for the Hornets in just over a year.

WEST HAM – Freddie Kanoute
One loanee might have quickly grown to resent him, but Harry Redknapp struck mercurial gold at the turn of the millennium. Having struggled for relevance in France, Freddie Kanoute found his natural home in the bright lights of London. Two goals in eight games after joining midway through the season earned him a permanent move which, while it ended with relegation and a departure for Tottenham in 2003, did garner 31 goals in the meantime.

WOLVES – Guy Whittingham
One of Graham Turner’s parting gifts as outgoing Wolves manager in 1994 was to deliver Corporal Punishment to Molineux. As the fruits of Guy Whittingham’s Portsmouth labour started to go off, Wolves offered him the opportunity to recover and rebuild. It was only after Turner left that Whittingham came alive, scoring eight goals in nine games in Steve Bull’s absence before setting sail for Sheffield Wednesday.

Matt Stead