Possibly the best story about Kolo Toure’s time in English football came on the very first day.
So keen was the young African defender to impress Arsene Wenger on trial that he left the Arsenal manager needing physio on his ankle after flattening him with a two-footed lunge in training.
Toure, just 20 then in 2002, was keen to make an impression and he remains so to this day. Having blazed a trail for the Ivory Coast on the field, he now wishes to do the same as a manager.
‘One of the most important things to me is that I am from Africa,’ Toure tells Sportsmail.