What happened to Ian Wright's three "dream" signings for Arsenal - with only one joining

Back in 2019, Ian Wright was asked to name three players he would love for Arsenal to sign.

His answers weren't particularly shocking at the time, given the form of all three, but all of the players mentioned have since had to endure some notably difficult periods and the Gunners may be thankful they didn't land the signature of all three, though they did fork out quite the sum on one of them.

Speaking to Mirror Football, the Arsenal legend explained: "Someone like Ben Chilwell. He is the kind of left-back who is getting better with every game. He's an England international now. Somebody that I'm sure is going to be sought after.

"Then there is Youri Tielemans. He came over from Monaco. He's on loan at Leicester City and he's someone that - well there are loads of teams linked with him - but he's someone that you'd want to have.

"And Nicolas Pepe at Lille. That kind of winger with his intensity, pace and skill. Those are the kind of players that are definitely going to improve any team if I'm totally honest. And they're at the age where they are going to be there for a few years. So that's a dream list if I'm being totally honest."

Five years on, none of the aforementioned trio are exactly setting the world alight. Chilwell, who was at Leicester at the time of Wright's claim, got a £45million move to Arsenal's London rivals Chelsea in 2020 but has since seen his career littered with lengthy injury lay-offs.

His start for the Blues against Middlesbrough on Tuesday night was his first start in four months. Arsenal now have Oleksandr Zinchnko at left-back, an undeniably technically superior option even if he is more defensively fragile.

Tielemans eventually joined the Foxes permanently from Monaco and after several windows being