‘I won four league titles at Arsenal – but I still felt like an imposter at the club’

Playing over 600 games for Arsenal and helping the Gunners win four league titles did little to help one of the club’s longest-serving players cure his imposter syndrome.

Lee Dixon established himself as one of Arsenal’s greatest ever defenders during his 15-year spell at the club, making an incredible 616 appearances.

Dixon won the English league title in his first full season at Arsenal and played in every game of their 1990-91 title triumph.

The right-back, who earned 22 England caps, won two more league titles after the division became the Premier League as well as three FA Cups.

Despite this impressive level of success, Dixon struggled to shrug off the feeling he did not belong at a club like Arsenal following his £375,000 move from Second Division club Stoke City.

Dixon spent two years at Stoke before being signed by ex-Arsenal boss George Graham in 1988 and going on to enjoy huge success at Highbury.

‘I always felt as if I was a bit of an imposter,’ Dixon admitted on the Seaman Says podcast with Betway.

‘I’ll never forget talking to my dad. I signed for Arsenal and I said to him, “Honestly, I need to get my head right because I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this.”

‘And he was like, “what do you mean?”, I said, “It’s Arsenal and I’m playing for Stoke. I’m quite happy there in the Second Division but Arsenal, I can’t play there!”

‘And he went, “just get one game under your belt.” And I was like, right. So I made my debut and I said to him, “what happens now?” And he goes, you do 10 games.

‘That season, I played six because I was cup tied. I couldn’t play in the cup final. So I did the 10 the following season.

‘And then I said, “what now?” And he goes, “Now we do 30.” He kept giving me these targets, so I churned 30 games out.

‘And I’ll never forget, and bless him, he died 18 months ago and I miss him dearly but the last game I played, which was 619, I said, “Dad, it’s my last game tomorrow. I’m retiring.”

‘He went, “f****** hell, what are we gonna do for 620?” It went so quickly. It went from one to 619 [games] in the blink of an eye.’

Dixon, who has gone into punditry since hanging up his boots in 2002, added: ‘I’ll never forget my last game with Tony Adams, which was a few games before the end of our last season, because he didn’t play at the end of the last game because he was injured.

‘But it was a couple of games to go and we knew we were retiring in a couple of weeks. And the ball went over the top and Tony was out of position and I swept round, I think I knocked it back to Dave [Seaman] or something.

‘I was running back to the halfway line and the great Tony Adams turned to me and went, “you’re one hell of a full-back, do you know that?”

‘I get goosebumps thinking about him saying it to me now. And we were retiring in two days time. I said, “you could have said it 15 years ago! Any chance of you doing a pat on the back after three games?”

‘That was my motivation, but not everybody’s. Some people are really confident in their own skin. Some of the great players, they had a confidence that was beyond anything I had in myself.’

Dixon says it was Arsenal hero Graham who gave him the ‘discipline’ required to win major trophies.

The defender had played for Burnley, Chester City, Bury and Stoke before becoming a title-winner at Arsenal.

‘I was always reasonably disciplined, but what was great about George, and I didn’t enjoy it at the time, was whenever we were successful, he literally drew a line straight after it,’ Dixon said.

‘Immediately after he’d won something, he’d let you obviously go on holiday because you were in the close season. And then the first day back, he used to just drill it into you – “you’ve done nothing. You’re back to being nothing, start again.”

‘And it was like, “can we just go into this season as champions?” That’s not going to happen.

‘You’d work harder. You’d work for longer, you’d work even more on the things that he thought you weren’t good at. So that educated me into that discipline of where to be on the pitch.

‘At Highbury, in the good old days of advertising hoardings, the goalkeeper would get the ball on a goal kick. And I wouldn’t look to see where Martin Keown was or Tony Adams, because I knew.

‘I’d just get in my position because it was Barclays Bank and the ‘B’ was exactly where I needed to be for a goal kick. So I used to go “Barclays – I’m five yards off the line, level with a B.”

‘I knew that Martin would see me and know that he’s in the right position. So I’m not saying that I set the back four, but I just knew. And during the game, there’re so many things going on and there were times where I would.

‘I would just see that sign and I’d go, “I’m okay” or “I’m not okay” and that all came from the position that George put us in in relation to the ball.’

Dixon also played under another Arsenal legend in Arsene Wenger and says the Frenchman ‘changed everything’ following his arrival in 1996.

Wenger won three Premier League titles in his first eight years at Arsenal and spent 22 years in total in charge of the club.

‘He came and changed everything,’ Dixon said of Wenger. ‘From day one: geography teacher, leather patches on his arm, glasses on.

‘We were like “Arse-what? Who’s this guy? This is a joke!” And from day one, he just changed everything.

‘We started stretching before we went for a warm up, during the warm up, after the warm up. We’d stretch after the training. We’d stretch after a sauna, after lunch. I’d never stretched so much in my life.

‘I was 32 when he came, I was 38 when I retired. Nigel Winterburn played till 37 or 38. Tony Adams played till 35. Steve Bould played till 36. Martin Keown played to 37 or 38.’

Asked whether he preferred playing under Wenger or Graham, Dixon added: ‘It’s an easy question to answer – educationally, George all day long.

‘I’ve only realized the brilliance of Arsene Wenger since retiring and looking back at. Because at the time I thought I knew it all and I was experienced.

‘So he came and just gave me a load of freedom. Arsene was loads more fun. I had the freedom and the enjoyment I had my last six years because I was experienced, I knew where to be, I knew what to do.

‘And I had Dennis [Bergkamp] and all those people to pass to. And he just let me do it. And so I loved playing for both of them, so I can’t really pick.

‘But as I said, the other way around wouldn’t have worked. I needed to be taught and then needed to be allowed to play.

‘And then once people started to understand these ways, he changed the face of football in this country and there’s no doubt about that.’

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