Rate it!

99 votes

In the last of our close season series, we let you decide who is the greatest player to have ever appeared for Arsenal.

Here is our shortlist of eight greats, with the Eurosport-Yahoo! top three at the bottom.

So leave your thoughts below, vote in the online poll and we'll give you the final verdict on Saturday.

Tony Adams

Mr Arsenal spent his entire 22-year playing career at Highbury. He made his first team debut in 1983 against Sunderland, four weeks after his 17th birthday, and went on to make 669 appearances. He became captain at the age of 21 and was the cornerstone of George Graham's team that won the title with virtually the last kick of the 1989 season. Another title followed in 1991 when Arsenal conceded just 18 goals. He then overcame a battle with alcoholism to captain the club to two Premiership and FA Cup doubles under Arsene Wenger, memorably thrashing home the last goal against Everton when the title was sealed in 1998. He is the only player in English football history to have captained a title-winning team in three different decades.

Cliff Bastin

Arsenal were the dominant force in English football in the thirties and between 1933 and 1935 the club won a hat-trick of league titles. Alex James, Ted Drake, David Jack, Eddie Hapgood or George Male all could have made this list but Bastin gets the nod. His 178 goals in 396 appearances made him Arsenal's all-time top goalscorer for nearly 60 years - not bad for an outside left. If it was not for the Second World War - which intervened when Bastin was 27 - that total would have been nearer 300 and he would have added considerably to an already impressive list of honours.

Dennis Bergkamp

After two ineffective seasons in Italy, Bergkamp made a £7.5m move in 1995. It took the Dutchman seven games to find the net and the best part of a season to settle into English football. But he went on make 423 appearances and score 120 goals plus an unofficial 166 assists for the club. Deceptively strong and with a sublime touch, many of those goals were memorable. He is the only player to have come first, second and third in Match of the Day's Goal of the Month competition for a hat-trick against Leicester City which was the personal pinnacle of the 97-98 season when he won the double and was named Player of the Year. He won a further two Premier League titles and three FA Cups.

Liam Brady

"Chippy" became a first-team regular in 1974 and was the class act in a side that came close to relegation for a couple of seasons in the mid-1970s before reaching three consecutive Cup finals at the end of the decade. An elegant midfielder with a wand of a left foot, he was a very 'un-Arsenal' type player. He was voted the PFA Player of the Year in 1979, a year in which he won his only trophy as a Gunner, the FA Cup. He also scored a memorable goal that season - dispossessing Peter Taylor before bending a 20-yard shot with the outside of the foot into the top corner in a 5-0 win at Tottenham. His nickname derived not from his ability to dink a pass but for his fondness of fried potatoes when he first arrived in London from Ireland as a teenager.

Thierry Henry

From enigmatic winger in Turin to world-class centre forward in London. Under mentor Arsene Wenger, Henry became the club's all-time leading scorer with 226 goals in all competitions. The Frenchman won two League titles and three FA Cups with the Gunners; he was twice nominated for the FIFA World Player of the Year, was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year twice, and won the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award three times. Henry spent his final two seasons with Arsenal as club captain, leading them to the UEFA Champions League final in 2006. In June 2007 after eight years, 370 appearances and 226 goals, he joined Barcelona.

Frank McLintock

Arsenal had gone 18 years without domestic silverware before winning the double in 1971. Bertie Mee's team had some underrated attacking players like Charlie George, George Armstrong, Ray Kennedy and John Radford but relied on a mean defence led by the Scottish skipper. McLintock led by example and his never-say-die spirit was epitomised when his last gasp header forced a handball on the line in the FA Cup semi-final with Stoke. The subsequent converted penalty kept the double dream alive. In total, he played 403 matches for Arsenal, leading the Gunners to a Fairs Cup final win in 1970 and the following year won the Footballer of the Year award.

Patrick Vieira

The ultimate box-to-box midfielder, Vieira was a colossus for the Gunners from 1996 to 2005, a period in which he won three Premier League titles and four FA Cups. For the Highbury faithful use to watching the plodding likes of Ian Hillier, Steve Morrow and Ian Selley in the engine room, the man who 'comes from Senegal and plays for Arsenal' was an immediate fans' favourite. His televised debut as a substitute against Sheffield Wednesday saw Arsenal trail 1-0 when he came on, they won 4-1. Every season thereafter when Vieira was an Arsenal player they either won the League or came second. Every year since he has left, they have not been in the top two. After 407 appearances, he signed off with the winning penalty against Manchester United in the 2005 FA Cup final.

Ian Wright

Wright joined Arsenal in September 1991, shortly before his 28th birthday, for a club record fee of £2.5m. He was an instant hit - scoring on his debut at Leicester in the League Cup, netting a hat-trick on his League debut against Southampton and winning the Golden Boot in his first season by scoring 29 League goals. He went on to be the club's top scorer for six seasons in a row. Wright was nearly 33 by the time of Arsene Wenger's arrival but on 13 September 1997 he broke Cliff Bastin's Arsenal goalscoring record with a hat-trick against Bolton. He won the FA Cup and League Cup double in 1993 but missed the 1994 Cup Winners' Cup victory due to suspension and injury sidelined him during the run-in to the 1998 double.

Honourable mentions: Robert Pires, Ted Drake, David Seaman, Nigel Winterburn, Martin Keown, Steve Bould, Charlie George, Pat Jennings, Kenny Sansom, David O'Leary, Bob Wilson, George Armstrong, David Rocastle, George Eastham, Pat Rice, Alan Ball, Alex James, John Radford, David Jack.

Eurosport-Yahoo! verdict:

1 - Patrick Vieira

2 - Tony Adams

3 - Cliff Bastin

Lee Walker / Eurosport