Emmanuel Frimpong has revealed why he wears the No. 26 shirt at Arsenal.

The Ghanaian youngster who is currently on loan at Wolverhampton Wanderers did not have too many shirt numbers to choose from following his promotion to the first team from Arsenal’s reserves almost two years ago.

But after initially occupying the No. 35 void during his debut season in 2010, Frimpong keenly switched to No. 26 this year.

Of course, that number was previously worn by on-loan Gunner Nicklas Bendtner who later changed to No. 52 in 2009.

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According to Frimpong, he chose Bendtner’s old number in order to prove a point to the Danish striker who had condemned it as a source of ‘bad luck’ following a streak of indifferent performances for the Gunners.

“I chose number 26 because Nicklas Bendtner had that before he got the 52.” Frimpong said

“He has said to me that it is a bad luck number so I wanted to prove to him that I can turn that number into one with goodluck.”

Frimpong is making steady progress under Mick McCarthy at Wolves – playing out a solid 67 minutes in the 1-1 draw at Tottenham on Saturday.

Bendtner on the other hand is still finding his feet at Sunderland where has witnessed a change of bosses from Steve Bruce to Martin O’Neill.

The 24-year-old has vowed to ‘never’ return to Arsenal. And after a host of terrible misses in front of goal in Sunderland’s last match against Chelsea, Arsene Wenger may not rue losing the Danish striker too much.

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