‘I cost Arsenal £1m a goal but boss never gave me a chance – he forgot me overnight’

Not many have turned out for both of today’s opponents Arsenal and Crystal Palace, but one player managed to spend three years at each club despite failing to deliver as hoped

Arsenal vs Crystal Palace is a fair way down the London derbies pecking order, but few players have turned out for both clubs. And it didn’t work out at either for Marouane Chamakh.

The French-Moroccan forward spent an uninspiring three years at the Emirates after joining as a free agent in 2010, followed by another trio of seasons at Selhurst Park. In total he scored just 24 goals in English football, with 11 of those coming in his first year.

Given neither side required a transfer fee to sign him, Chamakh perhaps avoids the discussions of the biggest Premier League transfer flops. But as Mirror Football revealed back in 2013, he actually cost the Gunners a staggering £1m per goal.

That’s because he’d been able to secure himself a £93k-a-week contract having seen out his deal at Bordeaux, where he’d won the Ligue 1 title a year prior. Despite that damning statistic, Chamakh felt he was never given a fair shot by boss Arsene Wenger.

“When I started, it went really well,” Chamakh told RMC in 2016. “I took advantage of [Robin] van Persie’s injuries, which cleared my path.

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“I played for six months, I scored goals, I contributed. In January, Robin came back from injury, and overnight I found myself on the bench without any explanation.

“Yes, obviously I’m a little bit annoyed with [Wenger], because I think I deserved more playing time than he gave and promised me. The year passed and at the start of the next season, he told me that the tactical system would perhaps change and that I would maybe start with Robin.

“It was only promises. There was nothing at the end of them. That year, Robin was incredible, he was player of the year. I couldn’t say anything, and I wasn’t going to go and see [Wenger] and tell him that I should be playing instead.

“Robin was a lot better than me. For the ambitions I had, I think it was a little bit of a lack of respect. I had started well, and overnight he forgot about me just like that.

“He asked me to be patient, told me that Robin wouldn’t play more than 10 matches in a row, that he would get injured, but it lasted the whole year. There came a time when I had to make a decision and I left the club.”

Such was the financial burden of Chamakh’s pay packet that Arsenal disregarded the final year of his contract and let him join Palace, freshly promoted from the Championship, on a free transfer.

Like at Arsenal, where he’d shown early promise before quickly tailing off, Chamakh made a bright enough start with seven goal contributions in the league as Palace comfortably avoided the drop. Having only signed a one-year deal, it was enough to earn him an offer of two more years.

That decision proved to be a poor one and after his release in 2016, he had just a fleeting stint at Cardiff City before later retiring in 2019. Arsenal and Palace, who meet in north London for a 2pm kick-off today, can now consider themselves much better off both in terms of their attacking options and their respective standing in the top flight.

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