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After enjoying a successful spell in Italian football with Bari,
Juventus and Sampdoria, David Platt returned to English football with a
£4, 750, 000 move to Arsenal prior to the start of the 1995-96 season.
His first season at Highbury produced the reasonable return of six goals
from his twenty-nine League appearances, with his first goal in an
Arsenal shirt coming in a 2-0 win at Everton in the second game of the
campaign. Platt had been brought to the club by Bruce Rioch but in
August 1996 Rioch departed and was replaced by Frenchman Arsene Wenger.
Platt was a regular in Wenger's first season with the North Londoners
and scored four goals in his twenty-eight League outings, mainly
alongside young Patrick Vieira in the middle of the Arsenal midfield.
Wenger boosted that department during the summer of 1997 with the
arrival of French pair Emmanuel Petit and Gilles Grimandi. The manager's
preferred central-midfield pairing was Petit and Vieira and they were
nothing short of magnificent during the Gunners double winning season of
1997-98. This, of course, severely limited Platt's appearances and he
was to make just eleven starts during the season, with a further twenty
substitute appearances. He still managed to make a vital contribution to
Arsenal's season, however, with a superb headed winner in a 3-2 victory
over Manchester United at Highbury. The importance of that goal could
be seen by the fact that United finished just one point behind the
Londoners come the end of the campaign. That proved to be David's last
season with the Gunners as he opted to take a year out from the game to
study coaching before making the move into management. (David Scranage)
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