Life goes on, says Wenger

Arsene Wenger accepts sanctioning the sale of captain Robin van Persie to Manchester United was a “massive gamble”, but has faith his team can recover to mount a successful Premier League campaign.

“The reality is when the player doesn’t want to stay you have two ways: you either force him to stay or you accept the reality and you let him go. I have chosen the second solution,” said Wenger. “I know it is a massive challenge and a massive gamble I took but we have the quality to deal with the problem we have, and at the end of the day I can talk and talk and talk but we can only show it on the pitch now.

“Players have gone, life goes on and the football club is 125 years old and other big players have left this club and we have always gone from season to season in a strong way.”