There were even suggestions the club should have persuaded Anthony to stay, and that we don't always give young players a fair chance.

I don't believe that's the case.

As head of youth development at Arsenal, I'm not in the habit of promising 15or 16-year-olds who come to the club that they're going to get a run in the first team. I can tell them how they're progressing, and how their chances stack up, but all I can guarantee them is that they'll be coached and prepared in the proper way, and that their prospects of making a career in the professional game will be good.

Clearly, some don't make the final breakthrough into our first team, however, that doesn't mean we've let them down in any way. There are plenty of players in the Premiership such as Blackburn's David Bentley (right), Jermaine Pennant of Liverpool, Moritz Volz at Fulham, Charlton's Jerome Thomas, and Steve Sidwell and James Harper at Reading who have benefited greatly from their time at Arsenal.

I've been watching Irish schoolboy players for years now, and I believe that Ireland is struggling to provide youngsters with sufficient technical ability.

The responsibility for that gradual decline doesn't lie with Arsenal or any other English club.

The FAI should get together with the various schoolboy leagues in Ireland and devise a plan that concentrates on the technical development of youngsters, particularly between the ages of 10 to 14, and do more to prepare the best emerging players even before they think about moving to England.

In my view, many of the English clubs are owed a debt by the FAI because of the way they develop Irish players between the ages of 16 and 20, frequently turning them into internationals.

Of course there are casualties who have to return home, but then there are hundreds of English boys who fall into the same category. This is no different to any other sport, ie golf.

So, in a perfect world, Arsenal might have preferred if Anthony Stokes had stayed at the club. But he wanted firstteam football, which we couldn't guarantee him at this time, and so we weren't going to stand in his way if the right sort of offer came in.

Justin Hoyte went on loan to Sunderland, he had a difficult season when they were relegated, but he learnt from it and came back a better player. He decided he was going to be patient, and to keep pushing for first-team recognition, and this season he must have played 15 games for the club in all competitions, and he's having his contract renewed. Contrast that with David Bentley, whose temperament is more like Anthony's in that he wasn't prepared to wait to get some first-team football.

Bentley wanted to go, we let him go, and it's possible now that he's a probable England international.

Arsene Wenger recognises that youth development is to attract as many highly promising youngsters to the club whether they be from Ireland, England, other European countries, Africa or South America in order to increase the chance of producing players for the first team who haven't cost us a fortune. Some will go on to reach the heights elsewhere, and Wenger's quite prepared to live with that.

I can't say whether we'll look back and regret that Anthony Stokes was sold to Sunderland. In the end, we did what we believed was best for the player and for the club.

Last summer, he had a choice of going on loan either to Falkirk or to Colchester, and he chose Falkirk because there were assurances he would be playing for the first team.

Before he went, he had a frank discussion with Wenger and while he wasn't told that he would never be an Arsenal first-team player, it was made clear to him that there were other strikers ahead of him in the pecking order and that he'd have to wait his turn.

I think he took that quite hard, and once he started scoring a lot of goals at Falkirk, and once there were expressions of interest from Celtic, Charlton and Sunderland, he had a decision to make.

He had to consider once again what future he was likely to have at Arsenal, and because Wenger didn't see him as an integral part of next season's first team, I think the decision was easy for him and I would have done the same in his position. We made it known what transfer fee we were prepared to accept.

Once Celtic, Charlton and Sunderland agreed on that fee, Anthony was free to talk to them.

Because of their stature, their current success, their involvement in European football, and their supporters, Celtic initially looked the best bet, but their contract offer was inferior to that of both Charlton and Sunderland.

I spoke with Anthony when he was trying to make up his mind, and I advised him that, as long as there weren't major differences in the contracts, he should base his decision on which manager wanted him most, and on which club gave him the best opportunity of immediate first-team football.

He thought long and hard about going to Charlton before Roy Keane convinced him Sunderland was the best option. I don't think Anthony naively had his head turned by the fact he was being courted by one of Ireland's greatest players or anything like that. It was more what Keane said.

Yes, it was good business by Arsenal.

The club was fair to the player, we could have started an auction because there was so many clubs interested. In fact, if he had been a Falkirk player they almost certainly would have wanted a higher price. But a big part of the equation was to help the player secure the most beneficial move for his career.

I believe Keane will throw him in at the deep end because he thinks Anthony can score the goals Sunderland so obviously need. As regards his full international future, if he had emerged during the era when Niall Quinn, Frank Stapleton, John Aldridge, John Byrne, Tony Cascarino and Tommy Coyne were on the scene, he'd have to wait.

However, if he gets off to a good start at Sunderland, there's no reason why he can't become Ireland's third striker after Robbie Keane and Kevin Doyle.

Stokes is the best young player to come out of Ireland since Robbie Keane and Damien Duff, and his form this season has put him on the map. For Ireland's sake I wouldn't mind at all if we rue the day he left Arsenal.