Arsenal flop looks incredibly different 20 years on from debut… but still managed to win Premier League and FA Cup
ARSENE WENGER brought some incredible players to Arsenal in his early years as Gunners boss.
Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires… the list goes on and on.
But even in his title-winning days not all of his signings were hits.
Igors Stepanovs arrived at Highbury from Latvian side Skonto Riga in September 2000.
The burly defender hardly arrived as a household name.
And he wouldn’t exactly leave as one either.
Stepanovs was a commanding figure at 6ft 4in tall, but he was by no means a pillar of authority.
The Latvian made 13 appearances in his debut season, and that was as good as it would get.
Just six in the Premier League followed in the 2001-02 campaign, while he was called on only twice in 2002-03.
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He was then loaned out to Belgian side Beveren for the 2003-04 season, missing out on the ‘Invincibles’ campaign.
Stepanovs departed permanently for Grasshoppers in Switzerland in 2004, but not before picking up two FA Cup winners’ medals and a Premier League title across his 31 appearances for Arsenal.
A nomadic career was to follow, as he turned out for FK Jurmala, Esbjerg, FC Shinnik Yaroslavl and RFS/Olimps.
He then rounded off his career by returning to Jurmala in 2012 before retiring.
Stepanovs retired from international duty with 100 caps after a national team career that spanned from 1995 to 2011.
He swiftly moved into coaching, working with Latvia’s Under-17s between 2012 and 2018.
A very short stint as manager of second-tier Latvian side Auda Kekava followed, before a rather more exciting opportunity came up.
In February 2020 he swapped his snow boots for sunglasses as he left Latvia to take charge of the Maldives’ Under-19 side.
In his book, It’s Only Ray Parlour’s Autobiography, the former Gunners midfielder recounted winding up Martin Keown by pretending Stepanovs was better than him.
He wrote: “Martin Keown was always worried about people coming in to steal his position. If we had a centre-half on trial, Martin would say he was useless.
We all knew Igors was nowhere near the standards set by Tony Adams, Martin and Bouldy
Ray Parlour
“This big guy from Latvia, Igors Stepanovs, turned up. He was a unit, but seriously, he was not up to standard.
“A few of us were on the bench watching as he played in this trial game. Stepanovs is out there and every single pass he made, the boys started applauding, just because we knew Martin would be getting a bit steamed up by it.
“Dennis Bergkamp was sitting behind Arsene and kept doling out these compliments about this defender. ‘Great header! Unbelievable tackle!’
“Igors kicked this one ball 20 yards away from where it was meant to go but it still went to one of our players so we all stood up clapping.
“Martin’s muttering: ‘He’s not that good.’ He started to point out where he missed a tackle or a header.
“That night we went for dinner and laughed about it as we were only trying to wind Martin up.
“We all knew Igors was nowhere near the standards set by Tony Adams, Martin and Bouldy. But Martin is such an easy target because he bites.”