The midfielder spent the 2008-09 campaign with the Gunners but left having made just one Premier League appearance in north London <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Amaury Bischoff was described as a “gamble on talent”\u00a0by Arsene Wenger when he signed for Arsenal in 2008.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it was a gamble that did not\u00a0pay off, with the midfielder making just four appearances for the Gunners – but the 32-year-old still insists he would not change a thing about his time in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing time for me,\u201d Bischoff told Goal <\/strong> during an exclusive interview. \u201cThe city, the club. It was amazing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI made a lot of friends and I played with very big players. I know I could have done better, but I look back at it as an amazing experience. There are no regrets, never.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been 11 years since Bischoff left the Emirates Stadium after just one season in England.<\/p>\n He went on to have stints with Academica and Aves in Portugal before signing for Preussen Munster in the third tier of German football in 2012.<\/p>\n The midfielder spent the next five years with Munster, a stay he ended when he moved to current club Bahlinger in 2017.<\/p>\n But it is\u00a0his short spell at Arsenal that still fills Bischoff with pride, even if it only brought him one Premier League appearance.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a little kid it was a dream to play for Arsenal because I am French as well and\u00a0a lot of big French players had played there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an amazing day when Wenger told me he wanted me.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Bischoff joined in July 2008, shortly after leaving Werder Bremen having turned down the offer of a new contract from\u00a0the Bundesliga outfit.<\/p>\n Injury issues had plagued his final months in Germany, with Wenger admitting the signing was somewhat of a risk.<\/p>\n “Amaury is a young, promising player who we have taken a gamble on because he has been out for a long time,” said the Frenchman.<\/p>\n “He has had two surgeries on his groin so it is a gamble on his talent.”<\/p>\n Bischoff, who was born in France but represented Portugal at Under-21s level, had been in talks with Wenger for months before he completed his move to north London.<\/p>\n They had met twice in Paris to discuss a potential deal, with the midfielder eventually joining on a free transfer once his contract with Bremen had expired.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew I was a gamble because I had been injured for eight months,” he said. “But for me that was not a problem because I knew the quality I had when I was on the pitch.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wanted to get back so I could show I had the quality to play at Arsenal.\u201d<\/p>\n Bischoff added: \u201cIt was not easy at first. I was staying at the training ground Monday to Friday and then for the weekend I would go back to France, which was good for my head.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the week I was working with the personal trainer. It was very difficult but players like [Emmanuel] Adebayor, [Gael] Clichy and [Bacary] Sagna were very good to me. I knew Wenger was on my side as well and that was very important for me.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI still felt like part of the squad. [William] Gallas, [Kolo] Toure, [Robin] van Persie, they were all amazing guys. They talked with me like I was a normal player, it didn\u2019t matter if I was injured.<\/p>\n \u201cThey gave me good motivation to carry on which was very important because when you are injured, it\u2019s difficult. You need your family and your team-mates to help you and my team-mates were amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n Bischoff eventually made his debut when he came off the bench during a 3-0 win against Wigan in the Carling Cup in October.<\/p>\n He also featured against Burnley in the following round and made an appearance in the FA Cup as an Eduardo double helped Arsenal to a 4-0 success against Cardiff.<\/p>\n But he had to wait until the final month of the season to make his Premier League debut, replacing Theo Walcott during a 3-0 win at Portsmouth.<\/p>\n That proved to be his last appearance in an Arsenal shirt, with Bischoff leaving north London a month later at the end of his contract.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the right decision for me to leave Arsenal,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to play every week at a good level, but at Arsenal it was difficult because in midfield there was Wilshere, Nasri, Fabregas, Rosicky, they were all big players in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it was very difficult for me to get minutes. I spoke with Arsene and we thought it was OK for me to leave. I had no problem with that.<\/p>\n \u201cMy relationship with Wenger was amazing, he was like a friend and I am still in contact with him now. He was an amazing coach and man.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The midfielder spent the 2008-09 campaign with the Gunners but left having made just one Premier League appearance in north London Amaury Bischoff was described as a “gamble on talent”\u00a0by Arsene Wenger when he signed for Arsenal in 2008. Ultimately, it was a gamble that did not\u00a0pay off, with the midfielder making just four appearances…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}