The curse of leaving Arsenal

Moving to Spain in 2000 for a fee of £23million - still a record for a Dutch player - Overmars was almost immediately dogged by a knee injury which caused his retirement, aged 31, last week.

Similarly, Emmanuel Petit, who went to Barcelona at the same time as Overmars, made only 23 appearances for the Catalan club before returning to London with Chelsea, for whom he made only three starts last season.

Overmars said: 'I know what a favourite Patrick is at Highbury, but his ambition has made him feel he wants to see if he can get success elsewhere. That's totally understandable.

'The Arsenal fans need to accept and respect his feelings. He's done so well for them there, they can't begrudge him ambition. They don't let you move easily at Highbury. They didn't want me to move when I left, but I was quite determined that I wanted to test myself somewhere new. I'm glad I made that move.'

The one thing those Arsenal fans will respect is that Vieira has chosen to leave England and there is little chance that he would ever have contemplated joining any other Premiership club. But now that he appears Bernabeu-bound, Vieira might reflect on the fate that befell another Arsenal player who made the same journey.

Nicolas Anelka, one of the host of young Frenchmen Wenger has imported from his native country, has never fulfilled the early promise he showed as a Highbury teenager.

Signed for £500,000 in 1997, Anelka made a huge profit for Arsenal when he left Highbury for Madrid in a £23m deal in 1999.

In three years at Highbury, Anelka scored 23 goals in 65 games. But he never settled in Madrid, nor at Paris Saint-Germain and had an unsuccessful 20-game stint at Liverpool before moving on to Manchester City.

Indeed, it would be safe to say that of the players Wenger has o f f- loaded, only defender Matthew Upson has progressed to achieve international status as a Birmingham City player after failing to make the breakthrough at Highbury.

Some, like Luis Boa Morte, have experienced limited success in the Premiership, while Giovanni Van Bronckhorst has been a minor hit with Barcelona.

You could, too, make a case for Paul Merson, who appeared to have enjoyed his best days at Highbury but who then carved a new Premiership career for himself at Middlesbrough, Aston Villa and Portsmouth.

Despite that, the overwhelming evidence suggests that few players have actually gone on to better things after leaving behind the cerebral influence of Wenger.

Becoming a galactico has proved a magnet for the great and the good and Vieira must hope he will enjoy linking up with the likes of Figo, Zidane and Beckham. But history, alas, is against him.