Jose Antonio Reyes dead at 35: Reyes never hit the heights at Arsenal but was far from a flop
THE shock will last for a long time.
A devastating blow for those who played with him and knew him.
To die at just 35 is simply far, far too young.
And nobody who remembers Arsenal’s Invincibles will ever want to forget Jose Antonio Reyes.
Amid the stunned feelings that the news of his fatal car crash brought, there will have been some wondering about what might have been, too.
Reyes was not a failure at Arsenal.
After all, he was a member of that immortal side under Arsene Wenger, the last Arsenal team to win the title.
He won the FA Cup as well - although he was actually sent off at Cardiff in the final minutes before the Gunners survived the test of nerve from 12 yards.
And was a substitute in the 2006 Champions League Final, when the 10-man Gunners were so close to being the first London side to lift the “Cup with the Big Ears”.
LIGHTNING QUICK
Yet, in truth, Reyes’ Arsenal career never quite hit the heights it looked destined to when he arrived from Sevilla, for some £17m, in January 2004.
Some wondered if Wenger, who already had Robert Pires of course, might be over-gilding the lily.
Those doubts appeared to be banished as he made an impressive start, shrugging aside the nightmare of an own goal in the League Cup semi-final defeat to Middlesbrough to make a real mark with an FA Cup double in a Highbury comeback win over Chelsea.
Reyes was lightning quick, with what appeared a real goal sense.
And, yet, he maybe did not have the grit, the extra fight that his Arsenal team-mates possessed in abundance.
The likes of Patrick Vieira, Sol Campbell, Thierry Henry, even Pires, were always up for the physical battle. Welcomed it.
Reyes, though, was seen as a player you could get after.
The Neville brothers, in particular, believed he was flakey. They would kick him, chirp at him, and bully him.
Jose Antonio Reyes honours
Sevilla
- Segunda Division: 2000/01
- UEFA Europa League: 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16
Arsenal
- Premier League: 2003/04
- FA Cup: 2004/05
- FA Community Shield: 2004
Real Madrid
- La Liga: 2006/07
Atletico Madrid
- UEFA Europa League: 2009/10, 2011/12
- UEFA Super Cup: 2010
- UEFA Intertoto Cup: 2007
Benfica
- Taca da Liga: 2008/09
HOMESICK
Reyes, it seemed, lacked the wherewithal to fight fire with fire.
There were some highlights, still, although his first half goal in the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Chelsea was overtaken by events capped by Wayne Bridge.
His only two league goals in that campaign were important even though they came after the title was won.
A second half leveller at Portsmouth kept that unbeaten record going before he netterd at Fulham as well.
Yet where Wenger was looking for Reyes to kick on, he instead seemed overcome by unhappiness.
Suggestions of homesickness for a player who was used to the sun of Seville rather than the winter chill and cloud of North London were intensified when a prank Spanish radio caller coaxed his misery out of him.
None of which would have mattered had Reyes delivered.
'DEVASTATED' Tributes flood in after Reyes is killed in Spain car crash
SWAPPED FOR BAPTISTA
But after scoring in six of his first seven games at the start of the 2004-05 season, Reyes slumped.
He failed to find the net in the Premier League between the middle of September and the second week of February, as Arsenal’s found themselves unable to respond to the power football of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, although there was a famous North London derby winner against Spurs.
All the while though, the doubts were intensifying, with Wenger constantly being asked why his big money purchase was not delivering.
And things did not improve, with Reyes unable to impose himself on games far too frequently, the Highbury fans growing increasingly frustrated - much as the Spaniard was himself.
When, at the start of the 2006-07 season, with Real Madrid keen to bring him back to La Liga, Reyes’ decision to make himself unavailable for a Champions League qualifier made his departure inevitable.
Not that the loan swap deal, with Julio “The Beast” Baptista replacing him, really worked for either man.
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Reyes played for both Madrid giants before going back “home” to Sevilla but it was a career of gradual yet remorseless decline.
Maybe, had he been a stronger character, Reyes could have made himself into a true Arsenal legend.
Instead, he will be recalled as a member of a legendary team.
