As the cycle of football goes, the past few years have seen many of our best players leave for pastures new, whether they are legends like like Freddie Ljungberg and Robert Pires coming to the end of their careers or players like Philippe Senderos and Johann Djourou who just weren’t good enough for us and shipped out.
There are some players though who have been sold at their peak for a variety of different reasons from bids to high to turn down from rivals, player tantrums or out of respect to players who want a new challenge.
Looking back, it’s fair to say that the right decision wasn’t always made and Jonathan Kaney has identified this group in particular as players Arsenal should never have let go. If we kept this lot, our recent history may have been far more successful!
Click the navigation buttons above to see FIVE players Arsenal should never have sold
Ashley Cole
In 2005, Cole became embroiled in one of the nastiest cases of tapping up in Premier League history and became forever known as the ultimate Judas in world football.
Along with his agent Jonathan Barnett, Cole broke Premier League rules and ethics by secretly meeting Chelsea manager José Mourinho and chief executive Peter Kenyon to discuss a transfer to Chelsea. When it came to light, Arsenal were furious and the FA fined Cole £100,000, Chelsea, £300,000, Mourinho £200,000 and Barnett £100,000, with his agents licence suspended for 18 months.
With things so sour at Arsenal he ended up leaving for Chelsea and had a successful career at Stamford Bridge. However, although he is hated now, the former academy star and boyhood Gunners fan was of our best ever players and a stalwart at left back in one of our most successful eras.
It was gutting to lose him to for the sake of an extra £10,000 a week in wages and he was a player who realistically, until Nacho Monreal, hadn’t been properly replaced.
Cesc Fabregas
It’s tough to watch Cesc Fabregas, our once much loved captain, battling relegation at Chelsea and looking like a shadow of the player who he was when he played at the Emirates.
Despite Barcelona being told categorically over and over again that he wouldn’t be sold, the Catalans and the media just wouldn’t leave it alone, and Cesc even reportedly refused to train to force a move.
We can’t forgive him for his behaviour in engineering a move to the Nou Camp, but as a player who was moulded by Arsene Wenger from an awkward teenager to the youngest captain in the club’s history, Cesc will always go down as a player that everybody wishes we had held firm and never sold.
Thierry Henry
Thierry Henry was 29 when he left Arsenal for Barcelona in 2007 and went on to win a treble for the Catalans, scoring 49 goals in 85 games.
After it seemed like he was going to stay at Highbury and lead the club into a new era, the lure of Barcelona was too great and he eventually made the move for a bargain of just €24m.
He returned on loan to the club twice after he left the Nou Camp for the MLS, but after the disastrous fall from grace we had after Henry left, Gooners will always wonder what would have happened if our talisman and greatest ever player had stayed at the club for the remainder of his career.
Robin Van Persie
RVP is a broken man in world football having been stripped of the Dutch captaincy, left out their national squad and struggling to get games at Fenerbache.
He’s a player who sums up a trophyless era for the club, however despite our struggles during his time, from 2009 to 2011, he was our best player and talisman.
RVP is another player raised by Arsene Wenger from nowhere to stardom that demanded a move. However, while £25m was a good price for an injury prone 29-year-old, the principal of selling our best player to Manchester United was tough to take for Gooners and should never have been allowed to happen.
He got his Premier League trophy, but after Sir Alex left the following season his form for Moyes and Van Gaal was poor and he was shipped out to Turkey where he has been equally as poor. He summed up his nations failure to qualify for Euro 2016 by being stripped of the captaincy and looks to be a player who is going to fall into obscurity.
Had he stayed at the Emirates it could have all been different for him with the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez supplying.
Patrick Viera
Undoubtedly the sorest sale of one of our players has to be Patrick Viera who has never been truly replaced since he left for Juventus in 2005.
Until his transfer in 2005, Viera was constantly linked with moves to the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan and Juventus, who at the time were the biggest clubs in the world.
Wenger explained the departure of Vieira was his faith in Cesc Fabregas, which on reflection is even more sickening for Gooners.
Arsene told the Daily Mail in 2009:
“When Cesc Fàbregas was 18, 19, I would play him in a 4–4–2 with Patrick Vieira and I saw it did not work. Then I had the decision to make about letting Patrick go, because Gilberto Silva and Vieira worked, Fabregas and Silva worked, but I could not play Fàbregas and Vieira. But Fàbregas was 19 and if he did not play I knew he would want to go, so we risked destroying everything, all the work we had put into this player.”
Viera’s last kick of the ball for us in 2005 to win the FA Cup will mean he is forever a legend at the club, but to sell him at his peak for just £13.75m was a huge surprise for Gooners and if he had stayed at the club for the rest of his career, our trophy cabinet would be a lot fuller.