It’s a bitter-sweet departure at Arsenal Football Club.

But it’s an exit we’ve realistically known was coming for some time.

Football is a business, and, although hard-to-admit, this particular bit of business makes sense for all parties involved.

This week we say goodbye to Emile Smith Rowe, Arsenal Cult Hero.

Having joined Arsenal’s academy at the age of ten, Smith Rowe bleeds North London Red just like you or I.

A self-professed aspirational ‘one club man’, Smith Rowe honed his craft at Hale End, underwent loan spells at RB Leipzig and Huddersfield Town, and trod the impossibly testing path of academy-player-to-loanee-to-first-team-player that sees so many fall to the wayside.

And when things were bad at our club, when things were at their very worst some years ago, Smith Rowe and his trusted StarBoy companion were central in dragging Arsenal back from the brink.

They were beacons of hope in dark times, and a glimmering promise that we might one day return to the halcyon days that we’re now living through.

An especially treasured memory from this era is his contribution to a Boxing Day victory over Chelsea in 2020, a game which represented somewhat of a turning point in Arsenal’s fortunes.

You can almost divide Artera’s reign into two testaments on either side of this game, and you could argue that the Saka-Smith Rowe Revolution was one of the central pillars of Arteta’s job security in this time.

The image of the two Hale End graduates reclining together on the carpet will haunt lockscreens for generations to come.

Smith Rowe’s subsequent emergence as a stalwart in Arsenal team brought with it memorable goals against Watford, West Ham, Villa, and, more precious than any, in a sunny North London Derby at the Emirates.

He’d also been anointed with the Arsenal’s sacred, invaluable Number 10 jersey.

A big, big shirt to fill, weighed down by the illustrious history of Bergkamp, George, Ozil, Merson, and so on.

It was dreamt that, in decades to come, Smith Rowe might just be talked about as being in the upper echelon of this special and exclusive cohort.

But this dream just wasn’t meant to be realised. And we can blame injuries.

We can blame his seeming positional homelessness; not quite an Arteta eight, not quite an Arteta winger. Or we can blame luck and the fates.

Fate has certainly not been on his side in the same way as it has been for his famous Hale End friend.

For me, this has always been a sizeable elephant in the room, which infuses the story with a further hint of tragedy.

We watched those two boys, those two children, and decided that their intertwined destinies would lead them to ‘Premier League Great’ status.

But while Saka has gone from unprecedented strength to unprecedented strength, charting a course to international stardom and world-eleven contention, Smith Rowe has had to watch the majority of said journey from various benches and dugouts across the nation.

But this is not how Smith Rowe will be immortalised at Arsenal.

When the book of Arteta’s tenure is written, Emile will be a protagonist in those early, vital, exciting chapters. And regardless of context or circumstance, just like Cazorla and Campbell co. before him, his name will ring out in the Emirates (to the tune of ‘Rockin’ All Over The World’) for years to come.

Thank you for everything, Emile. Go well.

PS: Try and nick a brace against United on the opening weekend, too, yeah?