Arsenal FC's Most Painful Player Exits in Gunners History

During the history of any football club, players come and players go, but the institution always remains.

Sometimes, though, it can be very hard for fans to accept a beloved player is leaving. When you get used to a classy individual performing at an extremely high level for a long time, it's tough to accept that the gravy train will end.

What hurts more is when said player leaves for purely financial reasons, shunning the club that we all love for a few more pounds elsewhere.

This may hurt a bit, but let's take a look at some of the more painful departures in Arsenal's illustrious history.

Ashley Cole

Ashley Cole was a London boy who was brought up at the club and had become the best left-back in the world at Arsenal. If anyone looked likely to become a one-club man, it was him.

Then Chelsea came around.

When he was working out a new contract with the Gunners, he found himself "trembling with anger" after hearing that he had only been offered £55,000 per week and decided to see what rivals Chelsea had to offer.

Now, every time "Cashley" returns to the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal fans let Cole know what they think of him.

Robert Pires

With all the beautiful football that Arsenal fans were treated to at the feet of Robert Pires, it was a shame to see him go in the way he did.

Everyone knew that his contract was due to expire just after the 2006 Champions League final, and seeing him hauled off so early in the game after his goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann, was sent off was disappointing to say the least.

Seeing Bobby go was sad in itself, but a player of his caliber who had given so much over so many years to Arsenal did not deserve to have such an unceremonious exit in such a high-profile match.

Mathieu Flamini

Just when Mathieu Flamini appeared to be forming a solid partnership with Cesc Fabregas in midfield, Arsenal fans were shocked to learn that he was going to AC Milan on a free transfer.

Everything about this deal hurt. The fact that he left for nothing was quite painful, and his good performances had made him a fan favorite since becoming a first-team regular.

It appeared that Arsenal had a good chance of retaining their midfielder's services until he made an extremely swift deal to go to Italy that greatly surprised everyone at the club.

Liam Brady

When Liam Brady left Arsenal in 1980, the entire club seemed deflated and struggled to recover for years afterward.

After all, this was the man who had served as the team's talisman for years, was the oil in the Gunners' engine and embodied the beautiful football that the team played back then.

It is extremely hard to recover from the blow of losing not only your best player, but one who was so ahead of his time and drove the whole team forward. It was almost surreal to see such a legend leave so abruptly.

Kolo Toure

It is now plain to see that Arsene Wenger made the wrong decision in choosing William Gallas over Kolo Toure in 2009.

The two center-backs hated each other, and Toure eventually demanded a transfer away from the club due to his displeasure. Wenger could have ended the row by offloading the older and less effective Gallas, but in one of the few bad transfer decisions the Frenchman made, he let Toure go to Manchester City instead.

When someone brings up the now occasional problems with leadership and toughness that Arsenal have at the back, it invariably makes me think of the Ivorian, who is still a top-level defender at 31, while Gallas disgraced himself at Arsenal and fades away at Tottenham.

Samir Nasri

Samir Nasri is a player who is truly all about the money.

Arsene Wenger was ready to make him the focal point of Arsenal's attack following the departure of Cesc Fabregas before this season, but Nasri believed that his five months of solid production merited a big-money contract.

When he didn't get what he wanted from Arsenal, Nasri duly put himself in the shop window and beckoned to Manchester City, whose millions convinced him that the Citizens were a club with ambition and were worthy of his talent.

Needless to say, Arsenal fans don't hold him in a particularly high regard.

Cesc Fabregas

Everyone knew that he would move to Barcelona eventually, but it was still like a punch to the gut when Cesc Fabregas left Arsenal last summer.

He was the team captain, the club's best player and, like Liam Brady before him, the embodiment of Arsenal's entire footballing philosophy.

Many kept on hoping until the official announcement appeared on the club's website that Arsene Wenger would somehow convince Fabregas to stay again, for just one more year.

For fans who lived through it (all of us), August 15 will forever be a sad day.

Patrick Vieira

Oddly enough, it was because of young Fabregas' rise to stardom that Arsene Wenger felt confident in letting his captain and midfield general go in 2005.

Like his successor, Vieira's departure felt inevitable for some time due to the fact that he flirted with the likes of Real Madrid seemingly every summer, but it was still hard for Arsenal fans to accept that his winning penalty in the FA Cup final would be his last professional kick for the club.

His leadership skills were second to only those of Tony Adams, and it has proven impossible to replace such a complete footballer; players like Vieira do not come around very often.

To see a man who had been a fixture at the club since the very beginning of the Arsene Wenger era leave was really stunning to many, and it heralded a new and much less successful era at Arsenal.

Thierry Henry

The sadness of Thierry Henry's transfer to Barcelona in 2007 has been lessened somewhat by his return to Arsenal this past season, but both times the Gunners said goodbye to their best player ever were just as painful.

When fans came back to watch their team after Henry left, it was like returning to your childhood home and finding a new family living in it with completely new furniture; the structure was there, but the essence just was not the same.

Gone was the man who was the first name on the team sheet during the most successful period in the club's history. Gone was the man who had scored more goals than anyone in the history of the club.

It's no wonder why Arsenal fans salivate whenever Henry discusses coming back to Arsenal in a coaching capacity: we just can't let Titi go.

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