Ranking Arsenal’s Chelsea cast-off signings as Arteta ‘considers’ £5m Kepa deal

Mikel Arteta has a problem, folks; he is obsessed with bringing Chelsea cast-offs to Arsenal. Willian and Raheem Sterling didn’t work, Petr Cech bordered on disastrous, and while Kai Havertz and Jorginho proved their doubters wrong, the track record is… iffy. Despite that, Kepa Arrizabalaga for £5million feels like a bloody good deal.

The natural reaction to reading about Arsenal’s interest in Kepa is to laugh and say ‘Another one?!’ like the pensioner reacting to a new general election. But it actually makes perfect sense.

Kepa is just off the back of a solid season on loan at Bournemouth – who presumably want to keep him as their No.1 – is available for a measly £5million, and wouldn’t be expected to play unless David Raya is unavailable.

Sure, he still has a blunder in him, but so does every keeper, and as far as back-ups go, there won’t be many better for that price.

Now that we’ve tried to justify Arteta signing yet another player Chelsea are desperate to get shot of, we can move on to the lads we still can’t quite believe he brought to the Emirates.

Over the last decade, Arsenal have signed six Chelsea rejects. We’ve ranked them. Unsurprisingly, Unai Emery and Arsene Wenger only have one each. Arteta has four. He’s an addict, folks.

6) Willian
The highlight of Willian’s Arsenal career — by an absolute landslide — was when he agreed to leave the club for nothing. He accepted a mutual contract termination, sparing the Gunners from either paying off the rest of his deal or watching him warm the bench while pocketing £220,000 a week.

He was a genuine superstar at times for Chelsea, but even there, Willian was maddeningly inconsistent across seven seasons. Transfermarkt reckoned he was worth €22.5million when he joined Arsenal, which suggests signing him on a free was shrewd business. It wasn’t.

Willian scored once and assisted seven times in 37 appearances for the FA Cup holders in 2020/21, a steep drop from the nine goals and seven assists he’d managed in the Premier League the season before.

There are no hard feelings, given the dignified way he departed. But it’s probably best for everyone if we all just pretend it never happened.

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5) Raheem Sterling
The fact there’s someone worse than this on such an exclusive list tells you just how disastrous Willian’s spell at Arsenal really was.

Sterling at least benefited from being a straight loan signing, but it still didn’t come close to working out for him at the Emirates — which is a real shame.

Arsenal endured an injury crisis in attack this season, but even then, Sterling didn’t play enough. Arteta favoured Kieran Tierney over him — which is frankly ominous for any winger. The 30-year-old managed just one goal in 28 appearances, and that came against League One Bolton in the Carabao Cup.

In the Premier League, he started seven games. In the Champions League, he earned a suspension after picking up three yellow cards — the same number of starts he managed and more than his assist tally (two).

Arsenal’s season might have looked very different with the Sterling of old on the left. But sadly, he’s a shadow of his former self. He was England’s best player at Euro 2020; now he’s surely played his final game for his country. It’s been a bleak decline for one of Arteta’s worst ever signings.

What next for Sterling? There’s no chance he plays for a top Premier League club next season. Saudi Arabia or MLS feel depressingly realistic. We’d love to see him come Back Stronger. But it’s hard to see how.

4) Petr Cech
Cech was the first player Arsenal signed permanently from Chelsea since the great William Gallas/Ashley Cole debacle of 2006. Gallas was the original prototype: a Stamford Bridge cast-off under extraordinary circumstances. One of the great tales of that era — and a personal childhood favourite — was Gallas threatening to score an own goal if Jose Mourinho picked him. Simpler times.

Cech was supposed to save Arsenal 12 to 15 points a season. That never happened. His shot-stopping was fine, but his distribution was diabolical, and it seriously hindered Wenger’s efforts to play out from the back. There simply weren’t enough games where he saved Arsenal single-handedly to even come close to justifying that infamous John Terry quote.

To make matters worse, his final Arsenal appearance was the Europa League final against Chelsea in 2019. Everyone knew he was retiring and rejoining the Blues as a technical and performance advisor, yet Emery still picked him. He conceded four as his past and future employers steamrolled their London rivals.

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3) David Luiz
This guy had a wonderful — and horrific — habit of looking world-class one week and like a fish riding a bike the next. From a red card at Wolves to defensive monsterclasses in Arsenal’s 2020 FA Cup triumph, Luiz was an enigma. He’s still going, by the way, for Brazilian side Fortaleza at the age of 38.

Luiz cost Arsenal £8million in 2019 and conceded five penalties in his debut season — a Premier League record for the most by a single player in a single campaign. He also committed an error leading to a goal, gave away a penalty and got sent off in the first match of Project Restart against Manchester City. A full house.

But ignoring all those hilarious shortcomings… he actually wasn’t that bad. Arsenal wouldn’t have won the FA Cup without him, and that win arguably gave Mikel Arteta the credit in the bank he badly needed when things later got very, very difficult.

2) Kai Havertz
That the jury is still out on Kai Havertz, yet he ranks second here, tells you everything you need to know about Arsenal’s habit of hoovering up Chelsea cast-offs.

Signed for £65million to play in midfield, it quickly became clear Havertz wasn’t suited to that role in Arteta’s system. So he ended up as Arsenal’s starting striker. And to be fair, he actually did pretty well there — particularly in the second half of the 2023/24 season, when he hit a purple patch that temporarily silenced the doubters.

That form ultimately proved costly. Arsenal’s decision-makers were seemingly hypnotised into thinking A Proper Striker wasn’t needed. It was. The lack of one proved decisive in yet another failed Premier League title charge.

Havertz wasn’t the problem — but he also wasn’t the answer. Arsenal will try to get it right this summer, with Benjamin Sesko or Viktor Gyokeres expected to arrive.

1) Jorginho
It’s the price tag that gives Jorginho the edge over Havertz — £10million versus £65million for a player who still might not have a position. Havertz’s arrival arguably delayed the signing of a proper striker. Jorginho’s didn’t delay anything. It just quietly worked.

The Italian arrived in January 2023 as the back-up plan to Moises Caicedo — much to the dismay of Arsenal fans — but he’s proved to be one of the most useful short-term fixes in recent memory. Caicedo might have been the better long-term bet, but in terms of value and contribution, Jorginho delivered exactly what was needed.

He was calm, consistent, and influential on the pitch — and by all accounts, a leader in the dressing room too. He leaves this summer on a free transfer having done his job extremely well.

And don’t be surprised if he’s sat next to Arteta in the dugout a few years from now, handing out chewing gum and tactical advice.

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