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Often frustrating, but occasionally brilliant, young Spaniard Jose
Antonio Reyes arrived at Highbury in a big money deal on 30th January
2004. The Sevilla forward was a relative unknown outside of his own
country, but Arsene Wenger had seen enough to splash the cash on the
20-year-old and bring him over to England to add further power to his
strikeforce. Reyes made his Gunners debut just two days after signing,
coming on as a replacement for Dennis Bergkamp midway through the second
half of a 2-1 win at home to Manchester City, but it was the FA Cup tie
at home to Chelsea in mid-February when he first displayed his obvious
talents. With the Gunners trailing the fifth round tie courtesy of a
first half strike from Adrian Mutu, Reyes struck twice early in the
second half, the first a stunning long range effort, to win the game 2-1
and see Arsenal into the quarter-finals. Jose's next goal also came
against Chelsea, but wasn't remembered with such fondness by Gunners
fans. His strike on the stroke of half-time was cancelled out by Frank
Lampard and Wayne Bridge as the Blues won 2-1 at Highbury to progress to
the Champions League semi-finals, where they would lose to Monaco.
Arsenal clinched the Premiership title at White Hart Lane in the last
week of April, and they now focussed on maintaining their incredible
unbeaten record that had lasted the whole campaign. Jose helped them
keep it with his first Premiership goal in a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth,
before scoring the only goal at Fulham. The astonishing feat was
accomplished on the final day of the season with a 2-1 win over
Leicester City, Reyes appearing as an 82nd minute substitute, and the
Spaniard ended his first campaign in England with a Premiership winners
medal.
The 2004/05 season saw the arrival of Robin van Persie at
Highbury, but far from shying away from the competition, it seemed to
bring the best out in Reyes. After scoring in a 3-1 Community Shield
success over Manchester United, he scored in each of the first five
league games of the season, including the remarkable 5-3 success over
Middlesbrough in which the Gunners equalled Nottingham Forest's all-time
league record of 42 unbeaten matches. After his early flurry of goals
they seemed to dry up after his strike against Charlton on October 2nd.
Wenger would often substitute the Spaniard when he started, something
that hadn't gone unnoticed by the player himself. If his stock had begun
to fall amongst the Arsenal faithful, it quickly rose again thanks to a
winner against Tottenham at Highbury, although the result only delayed
Chelsea's winning of the Premiership by a few days. Jose's strike
against Champions League finalists Liverpool on the penultimate weekend
of the season was the last of twelve for his season, and he took his
place in the Arsenal line-up for the FA Cup Final against Manchester
United at Cardiff on May 21st (the photo above is during the game).
Arsenal won the final 5-4 on penalties after United had dominated the
match for large periods, but Reyes' red card late on extra time is often
overlooked. The Spaniard earned a second caution for fouling Cristiano
Ronaldo and became only the second player to ever be sent off in an FA
Cup Final.
The 2005/06 season, Arsenal's last at Highbury, was to prove a
disappointing one for the club and their Spanish number nine. Reyes
would score just six goals amid claims that he was suffering from
homesickness. He did start all but one of the Gunners' games on the road
to the Champions League final in Paris, but failed to score, and the
final straw appeared to be when he was left out of the final itself
against Barcelona, only appearing as an 84th minute substitute, three
minutes after Barca sub Juliano Belletti had struck what proved to be
the winner. Reyes now wanted out, and returned to Spain in a swap loan
deal with Real Madrid's Julio Baptista in August 2006. He had a mixed
time in the Spanish capital, and Real had made it clear to him that he
would not be joining them permanently before their final league match of
the season against Mallorca in June 2007. Coming off the bench, Reyes
scored twice to clinch the league championship for Real. The goals
prompted a re-think from the Spanish giants, and although they
considered signing him permanently it was their city rivals Atletico,
flush from their sale of Fernando Torres to Liverpool, who paid Arsenal
around £8m for his services in July. (Mark Jones)
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