Arsenal's best players: Gunners legend Charlie Nicholas brings us his pick of the best players in the club's history

Keeper - Pat Jennings

When I arrived in 1983, he was the master of the mullet! His hands were like shovels they were that big.

He used to wear white gloves, not like goalkeeper gloves with the sponge in or the webbing to fit your hands, but were more like snooker’s umpire gloves. They covered his fingers for the mud and that was about it, just so his nails were clean! There was no use for them.

As Pat was and always will be, he was a quiet man and was a master of being the ultimate gentleman, with his old fashioned ways. He was very similar to Bobby Moore, in the days when men were men and it was a tough world.

Big Pat could catch crosses with one hand and throw it out straight away. He rarely kicked it. He threw it out, but he could kick it too far. These were heavy duty balls at the time too.

I used to do a lot of shooting practice with Pat. He was a dream to play with. He was never one to moan, he would always be there to promote and try to help in his own way. He was a true legend of the game.

He was the one player who played at both Arsenal and Tottenham and was never damaged by it. That shows his character and how he was never affected by it.

He was one of best goalkeepers in the world when he took Northern Ireland to the World Cup in 1982 and made the last 16 after beating Spain. He was the rock at the back that everyone used to talk about.

Defender - Kenny Sansom

I have always had Tony Adams in my Premier League team, while David O’Leary was a fabulous talent too. I played with four world-class players, and the one from Arsenal was Kenny Sansom.

He was as quick as you could believe. He was brilliant on the ball, all left footed, as well as on the ball going forward.

If you went past him, you could give it around 20 seconds before he was standing you up again. He would not dive in, similar to Virgil Van Dijk, and people used to say it was because he was only five foot seven. He was not massive in the air but he could leap. He could pick a pass and was an extraordinary talent.

He was a left back that I played with and looked at from 1983-85 as a true great in football. I played against Antonio Cabrini at Juventus, who was best in the world at that position, but Kenny was the best left back in the world at one time too, and his England caps confirm that.

I cannot leave out a world-class player on top of a modern day player, so he would be the defender.

Midfielder - Cesc Fabregas

The midfield is something I always find tough at Arsenal. There have been many players who have blossomed into characters.

Patrick Vieira is probably one that stands out for a lot of people. The physicality and leadership that he brought to the Arsenal side.

Emmanuel Petit was magnificent for a couple of seasons too. It was an open debate and there are others who were not as good as Vieira - Freddie Ljungberg scored a lot of goals, while Ray Parlour was brilliant too, but perhaps not as good without the ball.

I thought Fabregas, who did become one of the top players in the world when he went to Barcelona, was up there for me. When he replaced Vieira, he looked really, really tasty. Did he have pace? No. Did he have a long stride? No. Was he physical enough? No, but the game was changing, as was the physicality of it.

The Spanish evolution was happening. No wonder he could play with Xavi and Lionel Messi, and no wonder Spain won the World Cup and the European Championships.

When I look at that and where he is now, that can happen. People start to lose it at a certain age. He had 10 years at the top, so as much as the winning mentality was instilled in Vieira, I love how Fabregas played.

He was great in the short and tidy situations, long passes, and he tried and never failed to get on the ball no, matter what the situation was.

People may be surprised about Vieira and Robert Pires missing out, but Cesc is my midfield player.

Forward - Thierry Henry

It has to be Thierry Henry. The midfield was the hardest because there are more choices.

We did not see enough of Nicolas Anelka at Arsenal, but what a special talent he was. Ian Wright was stunning and one of the all-time great finishers. Technically, my favourite was Dennis Bergkamp. I played a similar position to him, when that position was hard and you were trying to figure out what it was. It was not the number 10 then!

It takes a brave guy and a coach to play a player in this position. That is my breakdown of it. When I saw Bergkamp play it, to when and how I used to suffer and struggle through it, he was a master of it. He was physically competitive, as he received a few red cards as due his bad temper, but technically he was a genius of a footballer.

Thierry overtook that. Bergkamp made him a better player. Pires, Bergkamp, and Vieira could find a pass, while Parlour and Ljungberg could run in behind. When Thierry came to Arsenal, he was predominantly wide left and he was trying to find what he was, after a troubled time in Italy.

He exploded into life. If he did not score or make a goal, the fans would look at him to say what happened? He became that good and became that important.

It was the touch, the awareness, being competitive in his nature also. He just wanted to do things and make things develop. Henry has more options to change the game. Pace, skill, with the ball or without it, and that is why he is my all-time favourite Premier League player.

Very few players, mainly the likes of Cruyff, George Best, used to get the same reaction, but when Thierry used to go Portsmouth and different away grounds, they would applaud him. There was a gratitude there that looked at him in awe.

He was not like Alan Shearer, where he would batter and kick people about - he has more intelligence, more pace, more difference about his overall play; he would try to win in the right way.

I felt like I watched a master at work and I don’t think anybody will surpass that. Thierry always gets the mention, which sometimes is unfair on Bergkamp, but I have to pick one!

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