How did Arsene Wenger’s signings fare this season? – Thomas Eisfeld

Arsenal added exciting young prospect Thomas Eisfeld to their team on transfer deadline day in January. Just like a lot of other signings that Arsene Wenger has made since his appointment as manager in 1996, he is an unheard of player. There are many that don’t work out, but for every Igors Stepanovs, there is a Kolo Toure. So unsurprisingly when Thomas signed for the club at the end of January, many Arsenal fans across the world asked the question “who?”.

Thomas’ progress had been halted by injury at Borussia Dortmund, where Arsenal signed the youngster from. With Dortmund having produced a player like Mario Gotze, who was brought into their first-team squad at a young age, you had to wonder why Eisfeld hadn’t made it by now at Dortmund. Doing a little research into him, he suffered anterior cruciate ligament damage in late 2009 that delayed any progress that he could make. To his credit, he fought back from injury at a young age and impressed enough in Dortmund’s under 19 side with 6 goals and 6 assists in 12 appearances before his move. That was enough to convince the Arsenal boss to buy Eisfeld for a fee believed to be around £400k. His contract was up  at Dortmund this summer, so Wenger could have bought the German youngster to the club now, but given the fact it was a small fee, he probably saw the benefit of signing him 6 months earlier and getting him settled in England as the right thing to do.

Arsenal made sure that he went through a thorough medical at the club, given his poor injury record. Eisfeld made his debut for the reserve team just a day after he joined the club. He put in an impressive display, but Wenger’s worst fears when signing him became a reality almost immediately, when Eisfeld picked up an injury in his first game for the club. The injury kept him out of action until April, where he put in another good display and scored his first goal in Arsenal colours too, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win over Newcastle’s reserve team.

There was a comparison between Eisfeld and a former Gunner before he’d even signed for the club. When people heard that Arsenal were closing in on the young German’s signature, people compared him to a player that failed to make it at Arsenal under very similar circumstances. In the summer of 2008, Arsene Wenger signed Amaury Bischoff on a free transfer after he rejected a new contract at Werder Bremen. Bischoff was another player that had suffered from injury problems in the past, but been impressive for Bremen’s reserve team. Wenger said that Bischoff was a “gamble on talent” when he arrived at the Emirates, due to his bad injury record. He featured a few times for Arsenal in the domestic cups, coming on as a late substitute in a 3-0 League Cup win over Wigan, before coming on as a sub against Burnley in the League Cup and then another substitute display followed against Cardiff in the FA Cup. He made one appearance in the Premier League for the club, coming on as a sub in a comfortable win at Portsmouth near the end of the 2008/09 season. At the end of the year, Arsenal released Bischoff due to the fact he had failed to make it in the first-team as his contract expired.

Thankfully for Eisfeld he got a longer contract and is a little younger than Bischoff was when he joined. Eisfeld has only made a couple of appearances for the reserves so far, so it is tough to tell whether he will make it or not. He certainly has talent and has impressed in his limited time spent on the pitch so far, but his injury record is certainly a worry. Wenger usually uses the League Cup as a tournament to give youngsters a chance to impress and also to rest his first-team stars, so I expect that we might well be seeing Eisfeld being used next season in the League Cup provided that he is fit. Hopefully Eisfeld can break into the first-team at some point in the future and not end up as the next Amaury Bischoff.