Gael Clichy once opened up about his departure from Arsenal, revealing he had hoped to retire at the club but felt pushed out as the Gunners shifted their focus towards promoting British talent.
The former France left-back joined Arsenal in 2003 from Cannes and was part of the legendary Invincibles squad, becoming the youngest player to win a Premier League title at just 18 during his first season at Highbury.
Despite this early success, that league title remained Clichy's only major honour with Arsenal. As Arsene Wenger faced the challenge of replacing iconic players like Thierry Henry, Robert Pires, Dennis Bergkamp, and Patrick Vieira, the club's financial constraints due to the Emirates Stadium move saw a strategy shift.
In a candid chat on the official Arsenal podcast in 2020, Clichy reflected on the club's changing dynamics. "I remember clearly at that time the club was trying to promote more British players," he explained.
"There was a group of four or five players, they were putting them out there, they wanted to build the team around them and I was getting to a point where, not the injuries, but where you feel that the club is saying they [don't] want to keep you," reports the Mirror.
"I don't think they wanted me to leave but I didn't feel at the time that they wanted me to stay. I believe nowadays in football when you want a player to stay, you tell them you want them to stay and you make sure he stays. I didn't feel that at the time. I'm not the only one, if you look around at the other players who left at the time that I left they would probably tell you the same and I think overall the decision was good for everybody.
"It wasn't linked to my injury, it wasn't linked to anything but I could feel that the club was pushing towards something else." Clichy confessed there was a point when he saw himself retiring at Arsenal, but the club's seven-year trophy drought during his Gunners tenure compelled him to initiate an exit.
"If you speak with my close friends, my family, there was a moment where I was dying to finish my career at Arsenal because I was loving every single moment of it," he added.
"But at the same time seeing how it was going, seeing that for those last few years where we hadn't won anything, it was down to me as the player and I thought that maybe it was time to break the circle.
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"They were trying to promote new players so I said to myself, 'You know what? Let's go and see something else.'" Clichy ended up a Citizen in what was a £7million deal as he joined former Arsenal team-mates Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, and Samir Nasri at the Etihad Stadium.
The left-back had an immediate impact, winning the Premier League title in his debut season and later adding another league triumph and two League Cup victories to his City career.
