2002 New signing Gilberto Silva nets his third goal for the club in the 1-0 away win at Auxerre in the Champions League. The Brazilian ghosted in to finish off a flowing move after 47 minutes and Ars�ne Wenger admitted he has been surprised at his goalsco

2002

New signing Gilberto Silva nets his third goal for the club in the 1-0 away win at Auxerre in the Champions League. The Brazilian ghosted in to finish off a flowing move after 47 minutes and Ars�ne Wenger admitted he has been surprised at his goalscoring touch.

""When you buy a player you get some good surprises," Wenger said. "That's one of them. I didn't know a lot about his timing to get in the box. For Brazil he didn't show that because he sat always in front of the defence."

1992

Arsenal manager George Graham called for the Premiership to be trimmed down to 16 clubs to increase the quality of football - and save money.

"Try it for a year or two and if it doesn't work out and the crowds have been very, very low, let's go back and let them have as many games as they want,'' he said.

"The majority of managers would welcome a Premier League slimmed down to at most 18 clubs and I would prefer 16 because we need a chance to work on the basics with players.''

Meanwhile, Ian Wright scores his 31st goal in just 40 Gunners games as Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-1 at Highbury.

1981

Arsenal reached the second round of the Uefa Cup after a 1-0 home win over Panathinaikos sealed a 3-0 aggregate win.

Brian Talbot scored the only goal of the game against the Greek league leaders in front of 23,514 fans at Highbury, but the main talking point was when visiting midfielder Galakos was floored by Gunners defender Willie Young in the box - only for the referee to entirely miss the incident, much to the home fans' enjoyment.