From Francis Jeffers to Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal have really made some awful signings over the years, especially under the 22-year reign of Arsene Wenger.

There's so many that we struggled to fit them all into this list and had to leave out some strong contenders!

There is hope amongst Arsenal fans that, under Mikel Arteta, things might change for the better in the near future and perhaps there might be a more successful transfer strategy put in place. If there can be more Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's and fewer Denis Suarez's then it can only be a good thing, right?

Anyway, here's Arsenal's 20 worst signings of the Premier League era so far...

Mikael Silvestre

Mikael Silvestre for Arsenal

We start with a great player who the Gunners just decided to prise away from Manchester United way too late in his career, versatile French defender Mikael Silvestre.

The 31-year-old at the time of his Emirates Stadium arrival really struggled to have the same impact he had at Old Trafford in north London and featured a mere 43 times in two years.

Andre Santos

Arsene Wenger scouted the former Brazil international at Fenerbache and decided to take a near £5m punt on the left-sided star, it was one that failed to pay off with Santos only able to provide three goals and no assists in 33 outings.

He also hardly endeared himself to the red army, see Robin van Persie incident.

John Jensen

Curly-haired Danish 1992 UEFA European champion John Jensen became something of a cult hero at Highbury right at the beginning of the Premier League era.

However, that doesn't really take away from the fact that he never really delivered in the tricky pre-Wenger period for the North Londoners and he was signed as a result of an agent giving George Graham a back-hander - at least he'll always have that seminal goal against Queens Park Rangers to remember.

Denilson

Football - Leyton Orient v Arsenal FA Cup Fifth Round  - The Matchroom Stadium, Brisbane Road - 10/11 - 20/2/11 
Arsenal's Denilson lies on the picth after appearing to sustain an injury 
Mandatory Credit: Action Images / Tony O'Brien 
Livepic

When the Gunners forked out £3.4m to sign little-known 19-year-old Brazilian Denilson in the summer of 2006, there was a feeling of excitement and bemusement around the club.

The latter one turned out to be the more appropriate reaction.

Despite making over a century-and-a-half of Arsenal appearances, the central defensive midfielder never really lived up to his potential and comfortably makes it onto this list.

Sebastien Squillaci

Taking about easily being one of the Gunners' worst signings in Premier League history, Sebastien Squillaci is right up there and could even be the worst.

The ill-disciplined ex-France centre-back never really settled into English football, struggling from the off and the fact that his international career was brought to a halt after he moved to north London says it all really.

Denis Suarez

Denis Suarez's loan from Barcelona to Arsenal in the second half of 2018/2019 was certainly one of the most pointless transfers of the Premier League era.

The agile attacking midfielder played just six times, a cameo role from the bench on each occasion, before picking up a groin injury a month before the end of the campaign and spending the rest of it on the sidelines.

Junichi Inamoto

There was definitely something fishy about Japan legend Junichi Inamoto's switch to Highbury in 2001 as he was plucked out of the microscopic J-League on loan only to ever feature four times in cup competitions.

Looking back now it very much appears that there were other motives behind this move, perhaps the Gunners wanted to raise their profile and sell more shirts in Japan ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup? And maybe the transfer was successful in that sense?

Nevertheless, Arsene Wenger's face above doesn't in the least suggest suspicion...

Yaya Sanogo

Former Golden Boy nominee Yaya Sanogo is a classic example of that player who impresses hugely in pre-season and turns out to be a flop when they start to sink their teeth into some competitive action.

The French youth prodigy did what Arsenal's official social media accounts are still referring to as a "madness" against Napoli in the Emirates Cup in just his second pre-season, scoring four times in a 5-1 victory.

However, his form competitively was a world apart from this as Sanogo pathetically never scored a Premier League goal in four years before a free transfer back to his homeland with Toulouse.

Richard Wright

Arsenal's goalkeeper Richard Wright watches the ball bounce past him
during their English Premiere League match against Charlton Athletic at
Highbury November 4, 2001. Arsenal lost the match 4-2. REUTERS/Russell
Boyce "No online/internet usage without FAPL licence. For details see
www.faplweb.com"
RUS/AA

It's simply laughable that not only did the Gunners spend £2m, some sum in 2001, to bring goalkeeper Richard Wright in from Ipswich Town, Arsene Wenger saw him as the long-term replacement for ageing club legend David Seaman.

Wait, it gets better, Wright actually managed to earn a Premier League winners' medal during his mistake-laden Highbury spell but unsurprisingly, he didn't even come close to establishing himself as the new first choice in north London.

Andrey Arshavin

Andrey Arshavin is a man who will always polarise opinion in world football - there was no doubting his talent though he could never really get over his frustrating inconsistency.

The fact remains, however, that the Gunners never really got anything more than THAT performance against Liverpool at Anfield out of the controversial Russian for their lofty £14.85m.

Francis Jeffers

Whilst there can definitely be some debating about whether names like Arshavin deserve to be on this list, there's absolutely no doubt that Francis Jeffers does.

The England one-cap wonder is perhaps the finest example of a lot of fuss about nothing, creating unequivocal hype with his young performances at Everton before fizzling out into mediocrity and worse.

Wenger's North Londoners beat off stiff competition to capture him from Merseyside for a near club-record fee of £13.77m in 2001 but the striker would only ever find the back of the net on eight occasions for them, enough said.

Jose Antonio Reyes

The late Jose Antonio Reyes was arguably the biggest waste of money of the great Wenger reign in north London.

Arsenal broke records and the bank to bring the Spaniard in for a whopping £17m halfway through the 2003/2004 term and whilst Reyes was present for some of the greatest moments in Gunners history, the attacker's contribution was very limited.

Much more was hoped for and expected out of up-and-down Reyes when he arrived.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 

Swapping your best footballer of the modern era for one that never had and never would properly gauge the pace of the Premier League is never going to go down as one of a club's better moves.

Well, this is exactly what Arsenal did in the winter transfer window of 2017/2018 with the Alexis Sanchez/Henrikh Mkhitaryan switch and while you could argue the North Londoners' hands were a little tied in terms of letting go of the Chilean, this deal undoubtedly still keeps some Gunners awake at night.

Glenn Helder

Leeds United v Arsenal - Premier League - 14/10/95 - Pic:Stu Forster/Action Images. 
Arsenal's Ian Wright celebrates his goal with Glenn Helder

Pictured here celebrating with the legendary Ian Wright, if Glenn Helder had half the Arsenal career the Englishman did he wouldn't be anywhere near this list.

But the Dutch winger who was marred by personal problems during his time in England was signed by George Graham just before his departure and never liked much by Arsene Wenger on the pitch - it isn't very tricky to work out why.

Lucas Perez

It's the summer of 2016 and the Gunners are in real need of a main forward and they're not going to be shy with their money to get one, eventually deciding on Deportivo's Lucas Perez and forking out £17m.

Why did Wenger make this choice? We may never know.

The Spaniard didn't have too much pedigree at all in Europe's top five leagues and had never even represented his nation, Spain, at international level - a UEFA Champions League hat-trick at Basel was the best it over got for him with the famous cannon on his chest, just strange.

Oleg Luzhny

Players purchased based on isolated performances against you never tend to thrive and right-back Oleg Luzhny epitomises this perfectly.

With Lee Dixon nearing the end of his distinguished career, the Dynamo Kyiv icon was signed by Arsene Wenger to eventually displace him and never threatened to - rather, he was in and out like a yoyo in his four years in north London.

Park Chu-young

Park-Chu Young for Arsenal

Arsenal's 11th-hour hijacking of South Korean striker Park Chu-young's move across France from Monaco to Lille is one that stinks of the Inamoto deal 10 years earlier.

How else would you explain Inamoto's fellow Asian making the grand total of seven appearances in three seasons? Anyway, in footballing terms, this signing was both terrible and bizarre.

Nelson Vivas

Football - Arsenal v Manchester United - F.A. Premier League - 1/10/00 
Mandatory Credit : Action Images / Roy Beardsworth 
David Beckham - Manchester United with Nelson Vivas - Arsenal

Gunners who had forgotten all about Nelson Vivas were given a staunch reminder of him when he quite recently made global football headlines by furiously ripping his own shirt off his back in protest of being sent off by a referee whilst in charge of Estudiantes in his native Argentina.

As for his Arsenal career, it was hardly as memorable as this incident, as the current Atletico Madrid assistant manager will go down as one of many failed Wenger full-backs.

Igor Stepanovs

A further taste of the weird and wonderfully and well, truly dire now, with Igor Stepanovs.

He was a centre-back who Wenger signed as a result of a prank on Martin Keown that involved several Arsenal players vigorously applauding and praising Stepanovs during a friendly in his trial period to wind the paranoid Keown up and Wenger listening to them and giving him a contract.

Manchester United 5-1 Arsenal, need we say anything more about the disastrous Latvian?

Kaba Diawara

Arsenal v Blackburn Rovers 6/4/99 F.A Premier League 
Mandatory Credit : Action Images / Darren Walsh 
Blackburn's Darren Peacock tackles Arsenal's Kaba Diawara

One final ill-fated player Wenger misguidingly spotted in his home country of France is the final star in this list - Kaba Diawara.

The Guinea international had ability alright, an uncanny ability to hit every part of the goal that wasn't the back of the net during his one and only term in north London - the memory of his late misses in the vital penultimate league game of the 1998/1999 season at Elland Road will still send shivers down Gunners' spines.