The move raised eyebrows at the time. Arsenal were the reigning First Division champions, and manager George Graham already had two-time Golden Boot winner Alan Smith leading the line, with a young Kevin Campbell also in the squad.
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Wright, who’d only turned professional relatively late in his career after being spotted playing non-league football for Greenwich Borough, had scored 117 goals in six seasons for Palace, but doubts persisted over whether Arsenal really needed him.
Those doubts didn’t last long. Wright scored on his Arsenal debut in the League Cup against Leicester, then announced himself properly with a hat-trick on his league debut, a 4-0 win at Southampton four days later.
He went on to finish that first season as the First Division’s top scorer, snatching the Golden Boot from Tottenham’s Gary Lineker with another hat-trick against Southampton on the final day of the campaign.
Wright would go on to be Arsenal’s top scorer for six consecutive seasons, winning two FA Cups, a League Cup, the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the Premier League title in 1998.
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He eventually broke Cliff Bastin’s long-standing Arsenal scoring record, before Thierry Henry surpassed his own tally years later.
Photo: Graham Whitby Boot/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images
