Van Persie off to Man United

Arsenal yesterday finally confirmed the news that all Gunners fans had feared throughout the summer, but deep down expected. The club has agreed terms for the sale of star striker Robin Van Persie to Manchester United.  Although many would have predicted the departure, especially following the Dutchman’s statement of 4^th July in which he declared in no uncertain terms the fact he would not be signing a new contract with the club that stood by him through seven injury plagued years, the news still sent shock waves throughout the football world.

Several have described their sheer disbelief at Arsenal having agreed to sell their best player to one of their deadliest rivals, but the fact is the club didn’t really have a choice.

Manchester United were the only club Van Persie wanted to move too and so while Arsenal could have rejected United’s offer on principle and held him to the last year of his contract, he would have then left for Manchester United anyway and Arsenal wouldn’t have received a penny.  So is it not better to accept a transfer fee of £24 million for an injury prone, ungrateful, 29 year old in the last year of his contract? A club captain whose shameful statement made his presence in the Arsenal dressing room untenable?

Accommodating a player who clearly no longer wants to be at the club could cause frictions within the camp. In order to have a successful squad, every single person needs to be pulling in the same direction, ready to fight tooth and nail for victories and trophies. The main problem was this was not just any player; this was a man who had been made captain last season and led the team through one of the most difficult seasons in recent times. The rest of the squad, especially the youngsters, would have looked up to him for inspiration, advice and guidance, but if he did stay, Van Persie wouldn’t have been able to retain the arm band and so his sheer presence in the dressing room would have simply undermined the new captain.

Yet there are those who believe the long list of star players leaving the club will only be stemmed once Arsenal start winning trophies again. It has now become a horrible cycle: the club hasn’t won anything in recent seasons because each summer they sell a star player and each summer a star player leaves because Arsenal haven’t won anything in recent seasons. As a result there is a view that the club should have held onto Van Persie in the hope his fine form would have carried over into the new season, enabling the Gunners to win a trophy at long last. However forcing a player to stay against his wishes has not reaped rewards for Wenger in the past, as the form of former captains Patrick Vieria, Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas suffered greatly in their respective last seasons with the club, having seen their requests to leave rebuffed the previous summer. Furthermore it would have been difficult to expect Van Persie to perform at his best while at the same time his mind would have been preoccupied with the on-going negotiations he would have been conducting with other clubs. So Wenger was right to cash in now in an attempt to draw a line under it. Hopefully the manager will use the transfer funds to further strengthen the squad and start afresh for the new season.

In fact plans were in place for life without Van Persie long before his infamous statement, with the signing of Lukas Podolski confirmed before the end of last season and Olivier Giroud following soon after. Given that the creative talents of Santi Cazorla have also been added to these new recruits, Arsenal are not actually in the weak position many would have us believe. Giroud and Podolski can form a lethal partnership up front, in midfield the club can boast a greater strength in depth and many more options than last season, while new assistant manager Steve Bould is working extremely hard on the team’s defensive shape.

New dawn: Giroud and Podolski

Of course it would be advisable for Wenger to dip into the transfer market once again, in search of another striker, with a worst case scenario of both Giroud and Podolski becoming unavailable and leaving the squad with a lack of options up front. Although maybe in this instance Wenger would deploy Theo Walcott as the main striker, a role the young Englishman has been yearning for ever since he joined the club. Rumours are also rife that Alex Song will soon join Barcelona and so Wenger would also need to sign a defensive midfielder to cover his departure, which could again actually leave the club in a stronger position as Song often neglects his defensive responsibilities to foray forward in support of an attack, leaving the team light in defence and so a more disciplined holding midfielder would provide more defensive stability.

Ultimately no individual is bigger than the club, players come and go but Arsenal Football Club is forever! It is a phrase which always comes to the fore during troubled times, simply because it is so true. No matter how hurt the fans are by Van Persie’s betrayal the club will move on, it will become bigger and stronger in the next few years than it has ever been before and the fans will promptly find a new hero. In the words of Arsenal legend Bob Wilson, who was interviewed today: “The king is dead. Long live the king.”