Igor Stepanovs might have a Premier League winners medal to his name, but his time at Arsenal isn't fondly remembered by many Gunners fans.

In truth, the Latvian centre-back was well out of his depth in the Premier League. However, that didn't stop him from racking up four years at the club following a £1.35 million switch from Skonto Riga in 2000.

Widely considered one of the worst players ever to play for Arsenal in the English top flight, Stepanovs apparently has a bet between Ray Parlour and Gunners' legend Dennis Bergkamp to thank for his fairytale Premier League opportunity.

The story of his signing recently re-emerged on social media and it's still fantastic.

During an appearance on talkSPORT, Parlour recalled the £50 wager that he and Bergkamp agreed upon to try and wind up Arsenal veteran Martin Keown during a pre-season friendly in which Stepanovs was playing as a trialist.

"We were on a pre-season tour and Martin Keown, you could wind him up big time.

27 Jan 2001: Igor Stepanovs of Arsenal blocks the ball reaching Peter Crouch of Queens Park Rangers during the AXA sponsored FA Cup 4th round match played at Loftus Road, in London. Arsenal won the match 6-0. Mandatory Credit: Mike Hewitt /Allsport

"We had this trialist come in at centre-half. He was probably thinking ‘we don’t need another centre-half, I’m not going to play!’

"So me and Dennis Bergkamp had a wind up. We had £50 on it. I had the first half to try and wind up Keown while Bergkamp had the second half.

"So every pass Igor did, it could be five yards, I was clapping him and saying ‘what a player this guy is! Fantastic!’

"Half-time whistle goes and Martin hasn’t bitten yet.

27 Jan 2001: Igor Stepanovs of Arsenal blocks the ball reaching Peter Crouch of Queens Park Rangers during the AXA sponsored FA Cup 4th round match played at Loftus Road, in London. Arsenal won the match 6-0. Mandatory Credit: Mike Hewitt /Allsport

"Second half and Igor hits this ball, I think he miskicked it. Went to one of our players 20 yards away and Bergkamp stood up and goes ‘what a player’ and starts clapping. ‘I’ve played against some great centre-halves and I wouldn’t want to play against this guy’.

"All of a sudden Martin says ‘He isn’t that good. He should have been pushing up, he’s dropping off too deep’. He bit, big time. So Bergkamp won the money."

All involved surely assumed that would be the end of the matter, with Stepanovs' time at the club likely coming to an end at the end of his agreed trial period.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, however, wasn't in on the joke and took Bergkamp's over-the-top praise seriously.

“Two weeks later and Igor is sitting there. I never knew he was coming. Wenger’s probably been listening to Bergkamp going ‘what a player’ and he’s thought he’d buy him.

"I said ‘what are you doing here?’

"He said ‘they’ve signed me to a four-year contract.’

“I was like ‘what?!’ He couldn’t believe his luck. He was devastated when he had to leave.

Watch: Ray Parlour tells the hilarious story of how Igor Stepanovs ended up at Arsenal

Stepanovs was famously exposed for his lack of top-level ability when he started for Arsenal during a heavy defeat to Manchester United in February 2001.

Parlour remembered: "He did play a few games here and there and the famous one was the game at Old Trafford where we lost 6-1 and he played centre-half.

‘To be fair he had a nightmare and I remember Dwight Yorke saying to me ‘where did you get this centre-half from?’ and I was like ‘I’ll let you know, it’s a long story!'

Prior to his 2004 departure for Grasshoppers Zurich, Stepanovs somehow racked up 17 Premier League appearances. He never played at anything approaching a similar level again before retiring in 2012.

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