Great buy for £4m quid or total and utter waste of oxygen? Given the number of penalties he gave away during Euro 2004 and his general shambolic performances I'd rather have a real plank of wood in my defence.
Ferguson's good buys in recent years (er, Shergar Van Nostrilbooy and possibly Howard, who isn't the best keeper in the Premiership) have been outweighed in quantity and price by his bad ones (Forlan, Veron, Bellion, Silvestre, Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, Fortune).
And yes, I know Wenger had the one bad year where he bought/borrowed four flops and Sol Campbell, but we still won the league that season.
Damien - Forest went unbeaten through half one season (76/77) and half the next season (77/78) - seasons were more games, I think (42 instead of 38). Arsenal have actually had their run over three seasons so far.
Arsenal tend not to make transfer fees public, they usually pay a lot less than the headline figure, which usually comes out of the selling club and fails to mention the small print ('2 million quid if we win the Champions League' etc). Wiltord was 11 million I think, and Henry 10.5m. Reyes might be 16.5m if we win everything, mind you if we do win everything we can pay the extra out of the loose change, and you have to say we're more likely to do so with him in the team than not having bought him.
Dodgy keeper? Lehmann got an award for keeping the most clean sheets in the Premiership last season at the weekend. Not that dodgy at all then.