Who else? The one-club man who was immortalised in bronze outside the Emirates Stadium was captain of the club for 14 years, after taking the armband aged just 21. He may have been part of the Wenger era for just six years, playing for ages before the Frenchman arrived, but he continued to be just as influential under Wenger's reign. Wenger's biggest contribution to Tony Adams was sorting out his private life. Adams was a notorious alcoholic and finally admitted it to the public, who already knew, in September 1996- after Wenger had arrived. Arsene stuck by him throughout his problems and was rewarded by Adams, who he got several more years out of when previously he would've retired a long time before he did. Without Wenger, Adams could've gone the way of Paul Gascoigne. Under Wenger, he captained the side to two FA Cup and Premiership doubles in 1998 and 2002, he retired after the second success but only after he had become the most successful captain in the history of the football club, the second most-capped Arsenal player ever and the only English captain to win league titles in three decades. In 2008 he placed third on a poll on Arsenal.com which picked the 50 best Arsenal players in history. He may have been around for 14 years before Wenger arrived but Arsene's arrival coincided with Adams recovery from alcohol and an extremely successful period for Arsenal, which is no coincidence.
Josh has had work featured in the Evening Gazette and on Newcastle United website. He is a Multimedia Journalism student at Teesside University and runs a successful sports blog. He also enjoys films, comics and TV, writing about anything he can. Josh has recently started writing his first of what he hopes will be many books.
