Ian Wright's former team-mates lift lid on playing with Arsenal and Crystal Palace legend
Saturday 15 August 2015 20:12, UK
As the two clubs where Ian Wright made his name prepare to face each other on Super Sunday, we asked his former team-mates for their memories of playing alongside one of the game's deadliest strikers and most extrovert characters...
"He was phenomenal." Paul Merson doesn't hesitate when the name Ian Wright crops up in conversation. The duo spent six years as Arsenal team-mates between 1991 and 1997, and former midfielder Merson still beams as he recalls their time together.
"He just loved scoring goals," he adds. "When he scored a goal in training, he celebrated like it was a Saturday. He came into the game late, so he had a real appreciation of it."
Wright was three months shy of his 22nd birthday when he was plucked from non-league obscurity by Steve Coppell at Crystal Palace in 1985, but he spent the rest of his career making up for lost time.
Under Coppell's guidance, Wright scored 117 goals in 277 appearances for Palace, helping them win promotion to the top flight in 1989 and reach the FA Cup final in 1990 before making his club record £2.5m move to reigning champions Arsenal a year later.
His arrival was greeted with caution by supporters in north London, but Wright immediately won over the doubters. The irrepressible 27-year-old scored on his debut for George Graham's side in a League Cup tie against Leicester, and three days later he hit a hat-trick against Southampton. That blistering start set the tone for what was to follow, and he eventually clinched the Golden Boot from Tottenham's Gary Lineker with another hat-trick on the final day of that campaign.
Wright was Arsenal's top scorer for six consecutive seasons, a run which famously saw him surpass Cliff Bastin's 178-goal scoring record with a hat-trick against Bolton at Highbury in 1997.
The first silverware of his career had arrived in the shape of a cup double four years earlier, and it was no surprise that he played an instrumental role in that success, scoring in the FA Cup final against Sheffield Wednesday and finding the net again as Arsenal won the replay 2-1.
Wright's explosive playing style was accompanied by a fiery temperament which frequently landed him in trouble, but that volatile streak stayed with him throughout his career and made him a nightmare to play against. His former Arsenal team-mate Martin Keown remembers lining up against him with Aston Villa and Everton.
He had great ability so you had to be tight with him, otherwise he would embarrass you.
"I played against him at Palace quite a few times," Keown told Sky Sports. "It was very competitive, to say the least. It was always something that could have gone off at any moment, we walked a tightrope playing against each other. He had great ability so you had to be tight with him, otherwise he would embarrass you."
His former mentor Coppell talked up the importance of embracing Wright's unpredictable "edge" two years after the striker's departure from Palace in 1993. "Once the whistle goes, he still plays football the way he has played it since his non-league days, bursting to win," Coppell said. "If you were to take away that edge, you'd lose the exciting player that he is. I don't think Ian can play in control. He's intuitive and instinctive. If you make him think, the intuition is lost."
Wright could fashion goals from practically anywhere. His total of 185 for Arsenal is only bettered by Thierry Henry (who once said he "fell in love with Arsenal because of Ian Wright"), and Keown recalls his instinctive ability to find the net. "As a team-mate, my abiding memory is just how lethal he was in terms of his finishing," he said. "It was like he had a mental book of finishes.
"Time used to stand still for him and he would flick through the pages and decide which way he was going to do it. He didn't have a stock finish. He could finish bottom left, top right, anywhere... In front of goal is where he came into his own."
Even when defenders did manage to keep Wright quiet, Sky Sports pundit Merson remembers his ability to produce a goal out of nothing. It was a habit former Nottingham Forest and Sheffield Wednesday centre-back Des Walker became familiar with. "Des Walker always used to have him in his pocket," said Merson.
"Wrighty would be in his ear saying, 'I just need one chance, Des, one chance and I'll score' - and he always did. He wouldn't touch the ball for 89 minutes but then he'd pop up and get the winner." Indeed, when chants of 'one-nil to the Arsenal' echoed around Highbury during the 90s, it was usually Wright who had struck the decisive blow.
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He made as much of an impression off the pitch as he did on it. "Hyper-active, is probably the best word to describe him," former Arsenal left-back Nigel Winterburn told Sky Sports. "Wrighty was just an infectious character. He was completely mad. After games at Highbury, he used to hang out of the windows of the dressing room, which used to look down on where the supporters were on Avenell Road.
"That was just his character. He was always a bundle of energy and a little bit mischievous at times - but funny, not cynical. He was a pleasure to play with. He loved his football and he scored some outrageous goals."
Keown agreed. "He was a great personality in the dressing room," he said. "He was quite a giggle. I think you have to have those personalities. You spend a lot of time travelling, you're together away from home a lot. Life ticks along a lot easier when you've got people you enjoy being with, and Wrighty was one of those.
"I'd often wind him up. If he had scored one goal, I would say to him at half-time, 'Wrighty, don't forget those back page headlines tomorrow.' And then he'd bang in a hat-trick."
Wright broke the 30-goal barrier in five separate seasons for Arsenal, but he had to wait until the age of 34 to win his first Premier League title, and he was oddly undervalued at international level.
Wright was overlooked by Graham Taylor for Euro 1992 despite winning the Golden Boot for Arsenal the previous season, and while he scored nine goals in 33 appearances in total, only 17 of those came as starts and none of them came in major tournaments.
An underwhelming international record means he doesn't retain quite the same legendary status outside of Arsenal and Crystal Palace, but the statistics show he deserves to be remembered as one of the very best. Of players to have scored 100 Premier League goals, only Henry and Alan Shearer have beaten his average of 0.53 per game.
Former Arsenal winger Ray Parlour summed him up. "Wrighty was always a top man and a top goalscorer," he told Sky Sports. "You talk about a finisher - and I played with Henry as well - but Wrighty was just amazing. What's more, he was a bubbly character, a great person to have on your side and a real winner."
Back in the present, and Sunday's game between his former clubs at Selhurst Park is likely to be decided by fine margins. What either side would do for a "real winner" like Wright…
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