Great players are often remembered by those games in which their talents excel to an exhilarating peak when it is most needed.

Zidane at Hampden Park in the Champions League Final, 2002.

In the same way, those players of whom you wonder how on earth they managed to ever play for The Arsenal have that one game in which their obvious lack of talent plummets to new depths of disaster you can no longer suffer. Gus Ceasar. Luton Town at Wembley, 1988.

Igor Stepanovs. Manchester massacre, February 2001.

The lanky Latvian was signed for £1m in September 2000 from continuously title winning Skonto Riga, at a time when Arsene Wenger began seeking youthful replacements for the legendary defence inherited from George Graham. Stepanovs was 25 at the time, and ever present for his national side since the age of 19. He had also gained regular Champions League experience, the lowlight of which saw him concede a late last minute penalty in the Camp Nou with the score level at two apiece.

Steve Bould had departed for Sunderland whilst the bones of Dixon, Winterburn and Adams would slowly grind to a halt over the next couple of seasons, heralding the need for players to come in and share the load with the ageing limbs, learning all the while before taking over when retirement, or West Ham, struck.

With hindsight, the fact an intelligent man like Arsene brought such a player to Highbury is an Arsenal mystery every much as intriguing as the 1930's film about our old home.

Firstly, his name was, and I'd guess probably still is, Igors. That's one bad mark. You might win titles in Latvia with that name, but you'll struggle to do so in England.

Secondly, and unkindly perhaps, look at him. Apart from the fact he is wearing a football shirt which somehow has our crest upon it, little else suggests he should have anything else to do with the game, let alone Arsenal Football Club.

Neither did his performances. On the pitch he looked like any number of footballing clichés for players who, quite simply, aren't very good. A fish out of water, or, if you live in a Paul Merson world, up a tree. Out of his depth. Lost.

It had all started out so well for the awkward centre half. Just like fellow 'stars' Alberto Mendez and Stefan Malz our Igors took the prestigious third round of the League Cup to make a goal scoring debut, albeit in defeat to Ipswich Town.

But one turd of a performance stinks out over all seventeen of his Arsenal appearances, and it is for that crisp early afternoon match at Old Trafford in February 2001 that Igors Stepanovs will forever be remembered by Arsenal fans who witnessed him that day.

It's worth mentioning that he was by no means alone in performing like he was playing football for the very first time that day. When a team gets beaten 6-1, it's because they have been collectively sh*t. And we were. Igors partnered Gilles Grimandi at the centre of defence that day, with the young, inexperienced, unc**ted Ashley Cole at full back to their left, and the European experienced horse, Oleg Luzhny to their right. Makeshift.

The reason Igors takes the majority of the blame for that result is due to the fact that, yes, he was sh*t, but that the other players all contributed other, more fondly remembered moments to their time with Arsenal than Igors did.

Luzhny in the 2003 Cup Final. Grimandi had already become a bit of a cult figure, starting with his acrobatic volley to secure a vital win against Palace on our way to the title in 1998, and climaxing eight year later when he ensured that a former Spurs player would not become the first to score at Ashburton. Ashley Cole will be remembered for things both far better and far worse than that afternoon.

Igors will not. Igors consolation goal against Ipswich, or his improved performances which saw him appear six times on our way to the 2002 title, fail to erase the memory of Old Trafford. A quick look back at the game which ended our title hopes that year as Manchester United moved 16 points clear, shows that Stepanovs was not quite good enough or close enough to stop the majority of United goals that day. Starting with Dwight Yorke's first after two minutes.

Stepanovs’ gangly frame looked worried with every step it took, as if the ground might not be below to meet his boots each time they tread down. After the fifth goal and Arsene's angriest half time rage, he may well have wished it wasn't.

It was like having Rodney Trotter at centre half. With every minute that passed and every goal that ensued, it was obvious the Latvian was realising he was well and truly out of his depth.

"After that United game, I spent a lot of time thinking about my performance," said the footballing plonker during the Old Trafford post mortem. "Eventually, I decided it had just been a bad day when everything that could go wrong did go wrong."

Indeed it did. And for that reason, and that game, we wonder how Igors Stepanovs is able to call himself a former player of Arsenal Football Club.