5 players who Arsenal surely regret selling

For many years, Arsenal were defined by their inability to keep their very best players. Particularly during the early-Emirates era, with Arsène Wenger forced to pay off stadium debts, key figures such as Thierry Henry, Cesc Fàbregas, Emmanuel Adebayor, Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri and countless more sought out pastures new, believing Arsenal was not the place to be to win trophies.

So, here are five players, from a long list of candidates, Arsenal surely must rue allowing to depart more than any other.

5 players who Arsenal surely wish they never sold

Granit Xhaka

First off, a recent departure that might just have cost Mikel Arteta a Premier League title. During the Gunners' first title challenge under Arteta, Granit Xhaka completed his full redemption arc. At one stage, the Swiss' relationship with the fanbase was seemingly beyond repair, telling supporters to "F*** off" while being substituted against Crystal Palace towards the end of Unai Emery's time.

Nevertheless, four years later, he was treated like a club-legend during his final appearance for the club against Wolves, scoring twice in the opening 14 minutes of a 5-0 win. This came at the end of the 2022/23 campaign, the year all fans really fell in love with their club again.

That summer though, Xhaka departed for Bayer Leverkusen for €25 million. Once in Germany, he was a key figure at Xabi Alonso led die Werkself to a first-ever Meisterschale, going through the entire Bundesliga season unbeaten, also winning the DFB-Pokal and reaching the Europa League Final.

Back in North London, with Kai Havertz having been signed as Xhaka's replacement, Arteta took some time to reconfigure his midfield. Even though Arsenal ended the season with 89 points, they dropped plenty during the first half of the campaign, which ultimately cost them.

Arsenal first half of the season vs second half of the season 2023/24

Arsenal's statistics exponentially improved after the turn of the year in 2023/24, but still finished two points below Manchester City. Thus, had they kept hold of Xhaka, who knows, they may just have picked up a handful of extra points early on and that would've got them over the line.

Alexis Sánchez

We're traveling back in time now to January 2018. In one of the most legendary transfers in Premier League history, a soon to be out-of-contract Alexis Sánchez has agreed to join Manchester United, where he would earn a whopping £350,000-per-week. The Chilean had been one of the division's best players for some time, scoring 80 goals and registering 44 assists in only 166 appearances for a far from unbeatable Arsenal side.

In return, the Gunners received an out of favour Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who was very much not in the plans of José Mourinho. Well, this did not work out for anyone involved, with Mkhitaryan featuring only 59 times for the Gunners, while Alexis scored just five times in 45 outings for the Red Devils.

He later admitted that, after only one day at Carrington, he knew he'd made a mistake:

"After the session I got home and I told my family and my agent can you not rip up the contract to go back to Arsenal?. They laughed, I told them there's something that doesn't sit right, it doesn't seem good... After the first few months I carried on having the same feeling, we weren't united as a team."

Had Alexis stayed, would things have been different? Well, perhaps not. The team was in a clear downward trajectory, hence why Wenger departed, but a player of his quality surely would've helped.

Serge Gnabry

More of a what might have been here, given that he made little impact on the Arsenal first team, but fans still rue that fact to this day. After joining the club from Stuttgart for £100,000 as a 16 year old, Serge Gnabry made just 18 senior appearances for the Gunners, his one and only goal coming at Swansea in September 2013.

The German also had an infamous loan at West Brom, appearing just three times for the Baggies, where manager Tony Pulis infamously said "Serge has come here to play games but he just... [isn't] at that level to play the games". Seeing no future in England, the winger joined Werder Bremen for £5 million after the 2016 Olympics, having helped die Mannschaft win silver in Brazil, scoring six goals.

A year later, he was snapped up by Bayern Munich, establishing himself as one of the very best wingers in the world in Bavaria. Now 30 years old, he has scored 103 goals in 319 appearances for die Rekordmeister, as well as taking his tally to 26 goals for Germany against Switzerland at St. Jakob-Park in March. Thus, Gnabry could have been a star at Arsenal, had he been given an opportunity.

Marc Overmars

Looking further back in time, Gooners of a certain vintage surely rue the day Marc Overmars headed for the exit. After joining from Ajax in 1997, the winger was an instrumental figure in Wenger's first double-winning side, racking up 40 goals and 33 assists in 141 Arsenal appearances.

While many would consider Overmars an Arsenal legend, famously scoring a crucial winner at Old Trafford, he was in North London for a good time not necessarily a long time. He departed for Barcelona soon after Euro 2000, the Catalan giants recruiting him and Emmanuel Petit for a combined £32 million, a huge return on the £5 million spent to sign him in the first place.

The Dutchman was replaced by Robert Pirès, who was not bad was he, but the Highbury faithful would surely have liked to enjoy Overmars for a little longer, even if his more-recent conduct while working as Ajax's director of football means we should not hold him in such high esteem.

Nicolas Anelka

Speaking alongside former chairman David Dein, when asked which player he regrets losing the most, Wenger said it was Nicolas Anelka:

"My biggest regret and shame is that [Nicolas] Anelka left. He could have been special, instead he played for 13 clubs."

As a youngster at Clairefontaine, playing alongside Thierry Henry, Anelka was by far the more highly rated of the pair. After arriving from PSG in 1997 as a teenager, Anelka scored 28 goals for Arsenal, including netting in the FA Cup Final against Newcastle, his electric pace something the Premier League had never seen before. After bagging 17 league goals in 98/99, only Dwight Yorke, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Michael Owen scored more, he was sold to Real Madrid for over £22 million, with which Arsenal bought Henry and a training ground; not a bad trade.

This move to the Bernabéu did not work out, instead re-joining PSG a year later. After that, Anelka played for Liverpool, Manchester City, Fenerbahçe, Bolton, Chelsea, Shànghǎi Shēnhuā, Juventus, West Brom and Mumbai City, quite the eclectic list, but never able to truly call anywhere home.

Anelka had a good career, but did not live up to his full potential. His nickname "Le Sulk" does not require much explanation or translation. Nevertheless, had he remained under Wenger tutelage, who knows, he may have been remembered as one of the best centre-forwards of all-time.