I'm an Arsenal legend and I instantly regretted leaving for a rival

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Martin Keown’s status as an Arsenal legend is firmly established, but the Premier League title-winning defender nearly blew his chance of etching his name into the club’s history books.

The former England international broke into the Arsenal first team in the mid 1980s under Don Howe.

Keown looked set to become a regular in the Gunners’ defence despite the presence of David O’Leary and Tommy Caton.

George Graham, Howe’s successor, had other ideas and sold the promising centre-half to Aston Villa at a time when a young Tony Adams was also emerging on the scene.

Asked his move to Villa Park was prompted by a suspicion that Graham preferred Adams, Keown rebutted that theory and claimed he instantly regretted leaving his boyhood club.

‘Absolute bull****,’ Keown told AFTV. ‘Look I’ve climbed a mountain. I’m in the team, I’ve just played 23 games on the bounce. Who is 19 playing in a Premier League team right now.

‘But when I went to Villa, Doug Ellis was very skilled. He saw me coming from miles away, tripled my wages, incredible signing on fee. It was like what do we do now. Do we sign? But if I’d have left it 24 or 48 hours there’s no way I’d have gone there.

‘Straight away I knew I’d made a mistake. I’d gone for the money, I’d gone for the wrong reasons. I only ever wanted to get in the Arsenal first team really.

‘The first day of training Paul Elliott came up to me and said ‘what on earth have you done coming here?’ and I said ‘I know’.’

Keown’s initial concerns were vindicated as Villa were relegated to the then second division but he thrived under Graham Taylor, playing a key role in the club’s instant return to the first division.

The notoriously combative defender moved to Everton in 1989 and spent four years at Goodison Park before Graham brought him back to Highbury in a £2 million.

Keown made a further 310 Premier League appearances for the Gunners, leaving the club for the second time at the end of their most recent title winning campaign in 2003/04.