Arsenal fans very much got the best of Patrick Vieira throughout his career and David Dein is the man we should all be thanking.
Vieira will go down as one of Arsenal’s best and most value for money signings ever.
However, after being so impressive over so many years, Vieira was a wanted man and former vice-chairman David Dein has revealed the lengths he went to to keep the Frenchman.
How many goal contributions will these players combine for next season?
David Dein followed Patrick Vieira on holiday to ensure he stayed at Arsenal
It’s quite something when one of the club’s co-owners is so intent on keeping a player that they actively follow them around in the summer.
But when it comes to David Dein and Patrick Vieira, that’s exactly what happened.
“Their president Florentino Perez used to say to me, you know, we like Patrick Vieira. What’s your price? I said there isn’t a price if he’s not selling,” Dein explained on the High Performance podcast.
“But obviously I knew that they were going to try and tap him up. So every year at the end of the season I said are you okay Patrick? I said where you going on holiday? He said Guadeloupe or Martinique. I said I’ll be there and I did.
“Thanks to Patrick I had some very nice holidays because I had to follow him make sure that he came back.”
It goes without saying that Dein’s intentions here were most welcomed by Arsenal fans.
Vieira went on to make over 400 appearances for the Gunners, leading them to the famous Invincible season and winning countless trophies along the way. Indeed, it goes without saying that Vieira would be have been almost impossible to replace.
After winning three titles and a number of FA Cups with the Gunners, Vieira also won the World Cup and Euros with France.
Adding further to his career, Vieira then went on to help Inter Milan dominate, winning four Serie A titles as well as a Champions League, to add to the Serie A title he won with AC Milan.
It’s little wonder, then, that Dein was so intent on keeping him and had he joined Real Madrid, they would have been nigh on impossible to stop.
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