Almost exactly 11 years have passed since Arsenal sold Ashley Cole to Chelsea. It was a tortuously long and publicly acrimonious process, more than 18 months from beginning to end and punctuated by an infamous hotel meeting, a Football Association investigation and an explosive autobiography.
Cole was officially announced as a Chelsea player in the early hours of Sept. 1, 2006, an hour and a half after the transfer window had closed.
The fact that new Liverpool signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's aborted £35 million move from north to west London this week was nowhere near as controversial to begin with speaks volumes -- not just of what Arsenal have become as a club, but also of where he finds himself as a player.