No individual is ever greater than the team

Thank you, thank you, thank you for leaving my beloved Arsenal. I appreciate what you did for the club in your short stay with us – you scored some fantastic goals and there were moments of brilliance that left me gobsmacked – but I am happy it’s all over.

The reason is simple ... with you in the starting line-up, the team appeared to be playing around you. This was often to the detriment of other players in the side and it showed in a lot of our performances in which you wore the No 7 shirt.

My daughter, who is also a staunch Arsenal fan, was devastated at your departure. “But dad,” she wailed, “he was the cutest guy in the team”. She used to say the same about Thierry Henry and she actually stopped watching the Gunners for months after he left. But that’s besides the point.

In my playing days, many, many moons ago, we had a midfielder at Wits who was a cut above the rest. He had sublime pace, incredible skill and an eye for goal and I’m sure his name was the first one the coach pencilled on to the team @GuyHawthorne sheet.

But, and here is the rub, we lost more often than we won with him in our starting line-up and I realised back then that our game plan revolved around him.

He was considered too good for amateur football by many observers and he quickly moved on, joining one of the top professional teams. His career stumbled and stuttered and, barely two years after signing pro forms, he hung up his boots. And the Wits side he left won the Cup that year and finished an impressive second in the league.

I watch players like Mezut Oezil and Jack Wilshere in the current Arsenal side and they are positively thriving in your absence. You see, the focus is no longer on an individual and instead on an all-round team performance. It makes Arsenal a pleasure to watch again.

It’s something I’ve thought about often. A team sport is exactly that ... about the team ... and no individual is greater than the sum of the parts.

In saying that, I wish you, as an individual, all the best at Man United, but I hope they win diddlysquat in all your time at the club.

On the subject of the club I love to hate, here is a story courtesy of one of my work colleagues. A minister is presiding over a same sex marriage between two men. At the end of his sermon, he is not sure how to conclude so he finishes with: “I now pronounce you man united!”