"He came into training one day, what he used to do for trialists is set up games. Usually, if it was a centre forward he would put Martin Keown on him as he knew he would try and kick him and whatever, and if he could handle that he might be a decent player.This one day they had Kolo Toure, and Martin Keown was in his first first training session. Against them, they had Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp.
I rolled the ball into Thierry Henry and Kolo Toure from nowhere has smashed him from behind. Two-footed tackle. Terrible tackle. Seriously, could have been a red card in a normal game. Our best player is rolling around.
Arsene Wenger says ‘Kolo, what are you doing? Don’t tackle, don’t tackle.’ He just wants him to stand there. ‘Oh, sorry, sorry’.
The next minute ball goes into Dennis Bergkamp, they’ve swapped now. Kolo Toure does exactly the same and two-foot Dennis Bergkamp and we are thinking ‘This is unbelievable. How can we win the league if our two best players has been taken out by the trialist? He must be working for someone else’.
Arsene Wenger says ‘Right no more tackling’.
Next ball comes in and Kolo Toure makes a great tackle, reads it, and the ball is flipped up into the air. Arsene Wenger used to stand right in the middle of the midfield and forwards and he’d try and look at the movement, so the ball has gone up in the air and Kolo Toure has his eye on the ball - he’s chasing the ball - and where did it land? Right at Arsene Wenger’s foot and he’s two-footed Arsene Wenger. Proper tackle.
All you heard was ‘ahhhh’. The lads are like ‘This is unbelievable. He’s took out Bergkamp, Henry, and Wenger on his trial.
Wenger has had to limp off. He’s gone back to the medical room. Kolo Toure is like ‘Oh no’ and nearly crying. He can’t believe it. It’s his big day at Arsenal and he’s taken out two of our best players and the manager.
That afternoon, I remember going into the medical room to see Gary Lewin about something and Arsene Wenger was sitting there with a big ice pack on his ankle.
He said ‘I know he didn’t mean it, I like his desire. We’ll sign him tomorrow’ and that was it.
We signed him for £150,000 because he liked his desire. He could get that out of him and change the way he played just by his desire kicking them two players and he ended up being an amazing player for Arsenal."