Top 5 players Arsenal have let go of

Arsenal have become a selling team, and it grows more apparent every season. While their rivals have spent big and plundered their rivals for quality signings, Arsene Wenger has seemed far too content on allowing his best players to leave, especially to the Manchester clubs.

As a club who has supposedly been challenging for the league title for most of the last decade, this policy is just bewildering. It is difficult to say, but one wonders just how much Arsenal’s fortunes would have differed if they had made more of an effort to keep hold of their stars over the years.

Alexis Sanchez is the latest example, finally completing his move to Manchester United. Arsenal have received Henrikh Mkhitaryan in return, but the departing Chilean is certainly the best end of the deal.

In a slideshow that should come with a warning for Gunners fans, here are the 5 best players Arsene Wenger allowed to leave Arsenal or, put another way, the 5 worst transfer decisions of his Arsenal career.

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#1 Robin van Persie

The undisputed and most famous case, after an incredible 2011/2012 season van Persie made the move to Manchester United in search of an elusive league title. He duly found what he was seeking: the Dutchman was sensational leading the line for his team, firing 26 goals in 38 league appearances.

He was a player at his absolute peak, in world-class form, allowed to leave for arguably their nearest rivals. It would have been simply unthinkable even 10 years prior: imagine the backlash had Wenger let Thierry Henry or Robert Pires go to Manchester United at their best, as the two teams battled each other for silverware.

Perhaps it was a sign of Arsenal’s slow decline under Wenger but his team were not in terrible shape, and if van Persie had stayed no one knows what the outcome would have been. Manchester United certainly needed him, and it is not hyperbolic to state that he was the main reason Sir Alex Ferguson retired a league-winning manager. To add insult to injury, van Persie, naturally, scored against his old club, even celebrating the goal in front of the fans who used to adore him.

A glory hunter he might have been, only interested in personal triumph, but what can’t be denied is that he was a game-changing footballer. Arsenal fans were left to ponder what would have been possible with a few more years of their talisman up front.

#2 Francesc Fabregas

Arsenal fans would have loved to have seen Fabregas return to their club

This one was a little easier to stomach for Arsenal fans. Their captain had given a lot to the club for over 5 years and wanted to return to his boyhood club Barcelona back home in Spain; it was an understandable decision by the player. Fabregas was, however, instrumental in Arsenal’s success throughout his time there.

Replacing Patrick Vieira at just 18, he remained the key figure in the central midfield for the following seasons, an inspiring blend of outrageous passing and excellent movement. He had been Arsenal’s only true world-class player, the one capable of raising their team’s level when it was needed.

Despite the player’s own reasons, perhaps more could have and should have been done to convince the Spaniard to stay in London, but what was truly shocking was that Wenger never really replaced his talents. Arsenal have been lacking in that department ever since his departure.

When one remembers that Wenger also never made enough effort to recruit Fabregas back from Barcelona when he wanted to leave and that he instead took his services across town to Chelsea, eventually winning the league title twice there, and Wenger's transfer judgment seems perpetually poor.

#3 Samir Nasri

Nasri played his part in 2 league successes for Manchester City

After a decent first couple of years at Arsenal, the playmaker exploded in the 2010/2011 season, showing the skills and dribbling ability that everyone knew he possessed. He scored 10 goals in 30 appearances as a midfielder, stepping up a level to help Fabregas take their team forward.

In the summer of 2011, Manchester City came calling, offering the player considerably more money. Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Adebayor had already made the same switch in then high-profile moves and it seemed unwise and unlikely that Nasri would follow suit. Arsenal did not try to match their wage offer and the player took the money and left. Two titles followed, Nasri a forceful presence in both triumphs.

His new team would finish a massive 19 points ahead of Arsenal as they struggled in the season both he and Fabregas departed the team. Nasri was a player with his best years ahead of him, a player Wenger could have built his team around for the foreseeable future but it just was not to be.

#4 Alexis Sanchez

The Chilean has looked far below his best this season

The most recent star to leave, Sanchez has been Arsenal’s key player since his arrival from Barcelona in 2014. At times, he has played like a man possessed, rallying and cajoling those around him to rise to his level. His goals and assists totals have been amazing for a left winger.

The Chilean’s move from the Emirates has sadly been coming for a while now, and this season the player has looked out of sorts, a sign of his frustration at the club. If they had not become a selling club, it is highly unlikely that Sanchez would have wanted to leave so badly: world-class players demand players of similar ability around them, which has been lacking for Sanchez and Mesut Ozil.

It is the destination for his transfer that really must be frustrating for the fans, however. Arsenal are currently 6th in the league, 11 points behind Manchester United, so to strengthen them considerably is quite ludicrous.

Their main creative spark aside from Ozil has not only departed but has not been fully replaced in this transfer window yet, leaving Arsenal lacking for the rest of this season.

#5 Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

The midfielder has grown in form after a shaky start at Anfield

Not as integral as Sanchez was, Oxlade-Chamberlain nevertheless possessed assets that Arsenal could have utilised. He's recently found a new lease of life in the central midfield for his new club Liverpool, the position the player has always said he'd prefer to play.

It is, intriguingly, a position that Arsenal have struggled to fill in the past season or 2: Aaron Ramsey appears jaded, Francis Coquelin has just left to join Valencia, and Granit Xhaka promises much but delivers comparatively little. Oxlade-Chamberlain was too often used further up the pitch, but his power and dribbling mean he functions better centrally.

At the age of 24, Jurgen Klopp has Oxlade-Chamberlain's best years ahead of him to mould further into an effective and elite player; that Wenger couldn't recognise the potential of the Englishman is another indictment of his decline as a manager.