“I regret selling him to Chelsea” – Arsene Wenger finally reveals biggest regrets for selling world-class player to Chelsea
Of all the sales done by the Arsenal club, legendary Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has claimed that the sale of Ashley Cole to Chelsea was his biggest regret.
When asked to name the one player he would’ve liked to have re-signed during his time at Arsenal, Wenger told beIN Sports: “Well, I would say personally, most of the time, the players gave us seven, eight, nine years and left after.
“The younger generation like [Cesc] Fabregas we lost early and would not have loved to lose him.
“The player I think we, internally, it was a mistake to lose was Ashley Cole.
“Because he was playing at nine, 10 years old for the club. I knew with Fabregas that taking him away from Barcelona, at some stage he’d want to go back to Barcelona.
“But Ashley Cole came out of the club. I think it was a misunderstanding over a few thousand pounds.
“At the time, we spoke about [Roman] Abramovich when he came into the game, Ashley Cole is one of the few players who developed even more and continued to develop when he left.”
Arsenal had initially demanded £25 million for Cole but the left-back ended up joining Chelsea for just £5m, with a cash plus player sale involving William Gallas who moved in the opposite direction.
Cole would further develop his game at Chelsea and ended up being one of greatest left-backs the Premier League has ever had.