Where Are They Now?: Junichi Inamoto

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He was Arsenal’s first ever Japanese player, signed in the summer of 2001 by manager Arsene Wenger for an undisclosed fee thought to be in the region of £3.5m. It seemed a fair amount of money for an unproven midfielder but the 21 year old had 22 senior caps for Japan and had come from J-league club Gamba Osaka, where he had helped the club win the Asian Cup and Kirin Cup.
Wenger had tracked the player for a while and had been impressed by what he had seen. Wenger felt that Inamoto was strong and a great passer and his enthusiasm and ability would strengthen the squad. Inamoto was obviously thrilled to be signing for the club although at the time did not speak a word of English.
With many feeling that the Japanese star was just brought in for shirt and ticketing sales, the Arsenal faithful believed that Wenger knew what he was doing. Besides the Frenchman had worked in Japan as manager of Nagoya Grampus so clearly knew the market.
But Inamoto failed to make his presence felt. He only managed four appearances for the club in total, two in the League Cup and two in the Champions League. But despite an increase that year in Japanese supporters attending games, Inamoto failed to make one appearance in the Premier League or the FA Cup.
Unfortunately for the midfielder he left the club at the end of the 2001/02 season. However Inamoto starred for Japan at the 2002 World Cup and even scoring two goals in the group stages and you have to wonder how he failed to make more appearances for the club. What did not help Inamoto was the fact he was trying to break into a team who went on to win the double that year. It was a team filled with stars and Inamoto although a good player, probably at the time just was not good enough for Arsenal.
Inamoto signed for Fulham after leaving Arsenal followed by West Bromich Albion. In 2006/07 he joined Galatasaray and played 25 times for the Turkish side before move to Germany and making 43 appearances for Eintracht Frankfurt. He left Germany in 2009 and moved to Rennes in France but only managed 5 matches for the french team before going back to Japan and playing for Kawasaki Frontale and finally Consadole Sapporo.
But the player with bleached blond hair maybe deserved more of a chance at Arsenal. He could certainly pass a ball and had deceptive pace. He had great ability and was able to strike a ball from range extremely well.
Wenger had certainly seen a player with great ability but unfortunately he never had the chance to shine. We would have loved to have seen Inamoto play more more for the club, but if he was only signed for merchandising purposes then the role he played clearly worked out,  as shirt sales increased with his name on the back along with an increase in Japanese people attending games that season.
But I can’t help but feel we could of seen more from the clearly talented Japanese midfielder. If only he was given more of a chance, we may of seen just what Junichi Inamoto could actually do.