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Arsenal dream team - the greatest Gunners ever
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
PAT JENNINGS
Goalkeeper
Arsenal 1977-84, 327 appearances
After thirteen years and 591 games with Spurs, Keith Burkinshaw believed the 32-year-old Pat Jennings was coming to the end of his career. It proved to be a miscalculation on a par with Pope Innocent III's prediction that the Second Coming would happen and it would happen in AD1284. Almost eight centuries after that gaffe he's still waiting to be proved right but Burkinshaw only had to wait eight games to realise he had made an awful mistake. Terry Neill poached the 119-cap Northern Irishman from N17 to N5 in 1977 and it wasn't until eight years later that Jennings played the last of his 327 games for Arsenal.
Jennings made the game look easy but unlike his Highbury goalkeeping descendant, David Seaman, he didn't need a horse-tail and 'tache to prove that the cameras didn't matter. In an age more accustomed to 'keepers who punch, flap and beat away the ball like demented volleyball triallists, Jennings is an exemplar for the philosophy that a goalkeeper's hands is the only safe place for the ball.
His performances for Northern Ireland in the 1986 World Cup, including a fitting finale against the Brazilians, came a year after he had retired from first team football and are a testament to Arsenal's finest 'keeper.
More pictures
Arsenal may not have as many European trophies tucked away in the cabinet as some of the other sides to have featured so far but that hasn't stopped them continually being at the forefront of revolutions in the domestic game.
>> Click on the image to the right to launch our guide
From Herbert Chapman's 1930s team to Bertie Mee's 1971 Double-winning side and George Graham's 1980s defensive rocks to Arsene Wenger's Invincibles, the Arsenal dream team has caused many headaches.
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