Nothing lasts forever and 10 major trophies can be considered not so much accomplishment as a matter of greed.
Wenger had made contingency plans. He signed Pascal Cygan from Lille and did not try to change Adams' mind, hoping that their paths would cross again.
Then the Arsenal manager did something unprecedented in the club's history. He decided the No.6 shirt his captain wore with such unparalleled distinction should be put in mothballs, for this season and possibly for ever.
Initially, he had offered the shirt to Gilberto Silva, yesterday's match-winner, but the Brazilian World Cup campaigner said, in his best Portuguese, that he would rather not.
Sol Campbell, the man charged with filling the Adams void, also declined. He prefers the 23 that stood him in good stead last season and yesterday's evidence against Liverpool suggested it was a sound decision.
So Wenger has folded up the red shirt and consigned it to the storeroom, although Adams has been told the dressing-room doors at the club's London Colney training ground and at Highbury will always been open, his influence welcome, his example followed.
While Adams attends Essex University to work on a three-year sports science degree course, Arsenal will get on with trying to make it a seamless change, a process they began last season and which Liverpool discovered is progressing well.
The best Liverpool could offer was nowhere near enough. Indeed, Adams may be gone but old 'Safe Hands' David Seaman stays on to defy all and Martin Keown snarls defiance at advancing years.
Wenger suggested the best way for the team to show faith in what Adams achieved was to fight to maintain his standards.
They did so yesterday and, if there was a toast in Cardiff, then it was surely to absent friends.
