'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,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'%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Arsenal are undoubtedly one of the biggest clubs in England, and one of the most successful too. In the Premier League era alone they’ve won 3 league titles, 8 FA Cups, one EFL Cup and one UEFA Cup-Winners Cup. They’ve also made it to the UEFA Champions League final on one occasion, in 2005/06.
Unfortunately for fans of the Gunners, despite all their successes, they’ve also been willing on plenty of occasions to sell their best players to rival clubs – both at home in England and abroad – usually bringing big money in, but to the detriment of the squad on the pitch.
Here are 7 well-known players who left Arsenal for bigger clubs in recent years.
Also see : Gold Cup Standings, Copa America Standings, Womens World Cup Bracket
#1 Aaron Ramsey
Welsh attacking midfielder Aaron Ramsey has been at Arsenal since the 2008/09 season, and over the past decade he’s developed into one of the Gunners’ key players, breaking into the first team as an 18-year-old and then establishing himself as one of the Premier’s League’s best offensive players. Unfortunately for Arsenal fans, 2018/19 will be the last season for Ramsey at the Emirates, as he recently agreed a summer transfer to Italian giants Juventus.
Unlike some of the other big names who have departed Arsenal over the years, the Gunners won’t even receive a fee for Ramsey, as his contract at the club expires at the end of June and the two sides were unable to come to any kind of deal. Whether that was down to Ramsey’s wage demands – he’s reportedly set to be paid £400k a week by Juve – is a question mark.
At any rate, longtime Arsenal fans have been irked by the whole Ramsey issue, feeling that the club should never have let the situation get to this point – either Ramsey should’ve been signed to a new deal a long time ago, or the club should’ve cut their losses last summer and attempted to sell him to gain back some sort of a fee then. Either way, Ramsey joins a long list of big-name players who have departed the Emirates for apparently greener pastures.
#2 Alexis Sanchez
Transfers between the Premier League’s biggest clubs seem to be few and far between these days, but one that took place recently – in the January 2018 transfer window - saw a huge name in Alexis Sanchez depart Arsenal to head to Manchester United, with United’s Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan heading in the other direction.
Like with Ramsey, Arsenal had allowed Sanchez’s contract to wind down to the point where he could’ve walked away for nothing in the summer of 2018, and so the swap deal with Mkhitaryan a few months beforehand made sense for the Gunners to at least recoup something from the issue. Interestingly, a move to Manchester City had been mooted for Sanchez in the months prior, but ended up falling through.
The move hasn’t exactly worked out for either party yet, either; where Sanchez was arguably the key player for Arsenal, he’s felt more like a pointless add-on at United and hasn’t established himself in their first XI, while Mkhitaryan’s form has been relatively disappointing at the Emirates too. Given Sanchez’s huge wages – apparently around £3m a year – maybe the Gunners got the best of this one.
#3 Thierry Henry
As far as Arsenal legends go, they don’t get much bigger than Thierry Henry. The French star was signed by Arsene Wenger from Juventus as an inconsistent winger in the summer of 1999 for around £11m, but soon transformed into one of the most deadly strikers in Premier League history. Henry ended up becoming the Gunners’ key player for the 8 seasons he spent at the club, scoring 39 goals in all competitions in Arsenal’s legendary ‘Invincible’ season of 2003/04.
That season was followed by two trophyless ones for Arsenal though and with questions surrounding the future of Arsene Wenger at the time, Henry made a shock switch to Barcelona in the summer of 2007 for a fee of €24m.
The Frenchman stated that if he was ever going to leave Arsenal, it would always have been for Barcelona, and there didn’t seem to be many bad feelings from Arsenal fans – they voted him the club’s greatest player in a poll a year later.
After spending 3 seasons at the Nou Camp, Henry moved again – this time to MLS side New York Red Bulls, but there was a nice twist in the tale for Arsenal fans. The Frenchman made a short-term move back to the Emirates on loan in January 2012 during MLS’s off-season, making a final goodbye to Gunners fans with 7 more games – and 2 more goals.
#4 Ashley Cole
One of the most controversial exits from Arsenal took place in the summer of 2006, as left-back Ashley Cole – who broke through into the Gunners’ first team from their academy in 1999 – moved to Chelsea following some protracted negotiations that went back well over a year. In the aftermath of the move, Cole became one of the most hated players in Arsenal history and was even christened ‘Cashley’ by fans who felt that the move was driven purely by greed.
The controversy started when Cole was caught in a secret meeting in early 2005 with his agent, Jonathan Barnett, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and their chief executive Peter Kenyon to discuss a move – all while he was under contract with Arsenal. The Premier League found all parties guilty of illegal “tapping up”, and all 4 men were fined. The relationship between Cole and Arsenal essentially never recovered.
Despite signing a contract extension with Arsenal later that summer, a year later he was gone, heading to Stamford Bridge for a fee of £5m, with Chelsea defender William Gallas moving in the opposite direction.
The move was bad enough for Arsenal fans, but their opinion of Cole being greedy was made even worse when he released his autobiography, stating he was left “trembling with anger” when Arsenal only offered him £55k per week, while Chelsea were willing to pay £90k per week.
#5 Robin Van Persie
In a strange set of circumstances, Arsenal essentially handed the 2012/13 Premier League title to Manchester United on a silver platter by selling star striker Robin Van Persie to their rivals in the summer of 2012. Van Persie – who scored 37 goals in all competitions in 2011/12 and was Arsenal’s captain at the time – had refused to sign a new deal at the Emirates, and was able to walk away for free in the summer of 2013, but it was still a surprise to see him move to United.
Van Persie for his part claimed there were no hard feelings between him and Arsenal and that he’d pushed to move to United as that was his wish, but Arsenal fans seemingly didn’t feel the same way – while they held nothing against the player, it was clearly frustrating to see them selling to a rival, especially for a relatively cut-price of £22.5m.
To make matters worse, Van Persie couldn’t stop scoring in his first season at Old Trafford; he plundered 30 goals in all competitions, 26 of which came in the Premier League, and almost single-handedly returned the Premier League title to United. If any sale seemed to confirm Arsenal’s new place on the Premier League’s totem pole, it was this one.
#6 Cesc Fabregas
Like Thierry Henry, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit – who all starred at Arsenal before moving to Barcelona – Cesc Fabregas made a big move from the Emirates to the Nou Camp. But realistically, it was difficult for even hardcore Arsenal fans to begrudge him making the move – the Spanish midfielder had come to the Gunners in 2003 via Barca’s academy, where he’d trained as a child.
It took Fabregas some time to settle but by 2005/06 he’d fully embedded himself into Arsenal’s first team as a key player, and while he only won a solitary trophy with the Gunners – the FA Cup in 2004/05 – he was a huge hit there and had 8 seasons at the club, becoming club captain in the process.
By the summer of 2010 though, rumours were swirling surrounding his future – most notably when he pulled on a Barcelona jersey during Spain’s 2010 World Cup-winning celebrations. June 2010 saw Arsenal reject a €35m bid for the midfielder, but a year later, they couldn’t resist selling – and picked up a cool €29m for him, with a further €5m in add-ons. A season later, in 2012/13, Fabregas won his first – and only – La Liga title with his new club, finally achieving the success he’d failed to find at Arsenal.
#7 Samir Nasri
Not long after their takeover by the Abu Dhabi Group in 2008, Manchester City began to make a habit of trying to buy Arsenal’s key players – and in 2009, both Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor made controversial switches to the Etihad, with Adebayor in particular becoming a major villain after sprinting the length of the pitch to taunt Gunners fans after scoring a goal against them.
Two seasons later, history repeated itself as both Gael Clichy and Samir Nasri – both key men for Arsenal – jumped ship to City for fees of £7m and £25m respectively. But it was Nasri who really drew the ire of Arsenal fans for his attitude after moving, as one of his first statements was to claim that City’s fans had more passion than Arsenal’s.
Nasri won the Premier League title in his first season with City and played a key role – appearing in 31 Premier League games and scoring 5 goals. Much to the delight of Arsenal fans though, that was about as good as it got for him at City, as his form became largely inconsistent over the following seasons despite picking up another Premier League trophy in 2013/14.
